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CIVIL  SERYICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 

A  HISTORY  OF 

ABUSES  AND  REFORMS 

AND  THEIR 

BEARING   UPON  AMERICAN   POLITICS 


By  DORMAN  B.  EATON 


"/  ildnk  every  one,  according  to  the  way  Providence  has  placed  him 
in,  is  bound  to  labor  for  the  public  good  as  far  as  he  is  able  " 

Jon.N  Locke 


NEW    YORK 
IIARTER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS 

FHANKLIN      SQUARE 
1880 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1879,  by 

IIarpkr    &    Brothers, 

In  the  OflBce  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


12  NOHTH  WASHI«GT0/«  sqg^ 


NOTE. 

In  submitting  these  pages  to  the  public,  it  seems  proper  I  should  state 
that  the  views  they  exjiress  concerning  administration  in  Great  Britain 
are  not  based  solely  upon  the  authorities  cited.  During  a  sojourn  of 
more  than  a  year  in  that  country,  I  had  given  special  attention  to  the 
subject.  The  general  studies  then  made  have  been  recently  verified  by 
special  inquiries  conducted  in  her  principal  Executive  Departments;* 
and  it  is  but  just  to  add  that  these  later  investigations  ■were  undertaken 
pursuant  to  the  request  conveyed  to  me  in  the  following  communication : 

Department  op  State,     ) 
Washington,  June  25,  1877.  f 
Honorable  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  Chairman  Civil  Service  Commission  : 

Sir, — The  Act  of  March,  3,  1871  {R.  S.,  §  1753),  having,  in  terms,  con- 
ferred certain  authority  upon  the  President  for  the  regulation  of  the  Civil 
Service,  the  proper  exercise  of  which  may  malce  it  desirable  that  he  should 
•possess  fuller  information  concerning  the  methods  of  such  regulation  in 
countries  where  that  service  sustains  relations  most  analogous  to  those  of 
the  Civil  Service  of  the  United  States,  I  have  been  requested  by  the  Presi- 
dent to  say  to  you  that  he  hopes  you  may  find  it  practicable  to  inves- 
tigate and  maTce  a  report  to  him  concerning  the  action  of  the  English 
Government  in  relation  to  its  Civil  Sei'vice,  and  the  effects  of  such  action 
since  1850. 

But  I  must  add  that,  there  not  appearing  to  be  any  approjrriation  available 
for  such  jmrpose,  you  will  not  be  authorized  to  incur  any  expense  for  which 
the  United  States  is  to  be  held  responsil>le. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

W.  M.  EVAKTS. 

In  bringing  the  substance  of  the  report  submitted  to  the  President 
before  the  public  in  this  volume,  I  may  be  mistaken  in  the  value  of  the 
facts  it  presents  as  a  contribution  to  the  literature  of  reform  ;  but  I  cannot 
be  in  my  painful  sense  of  the  many  defects  in  the  execution  of  the  work. 

D.  B.  E. 

•  I  am  much  indebted  to  various  British  officers  and  to  several  other  gentlemen  for  their 
polite  and  valuable  assistance  in  aid  of  my  inquiries ;  and,  without  mentioning  other 
names,  I  desire  to  return  my  special  thanks  to  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  the  venerable  re- 
former and  statesman,  and  to  Horace  Mann,  Esq.,  the  efficient  and  accomplished  Secretary 
of  the  British  Civil  Service  Commissiou. 


a: 


INTKODUCTION 


GEORGE   WILEIAM    CURTIS. 


The  author  of  this  book,  Mr.  Dorinan  B.  Eaton,  is  the  chair- 
man of  the  commission  for  devising  rules  and  regulations  for 
the  purpose  of  reforming  the  Civil  Service,  which  was  author- 
ized by  the  Act  of  Congress  approved  by  President  Grant 
March  dtli,  1S71.  Soon  after  President  Hayes  entered  upon 
the  duties  of  liis  office,  he  requested  Mr.  Eaton  personally  to 
investigate  the  operation  of  the  reformed  system  in  England, 
and  to  prepare  a  report  upon  the  results  of  his  observation. 
Mr.  Eaton  accepted  the  invitation  of  the  President,  and  de- 
voted several  months,  with  characteristic  zeal  and  thorough- 
ness, to  an  exhaustive  inquiry  upon  the  spot  into  the  reasons, 
methods,  and  results  of  the  reform.  His  studies  soon  showed 
him  that  the  new  system  of  appointment  and  the  new  tenure 
of  place  in  the  Civil  Service  were  but  logical  steps  of  progress 
in  the  political  development  of  England.  Tlie  um-eformed 
Civil  Service  in  Great  Britain,  as  in  the  United  States,  was 
founded  upon  the  theory  of  feudal  times,  that  public  offices  are 
the  property  of  the  ruler.  Upon  this  theory  they  were  filled 
for  his  benefit,  and  without  regard  to  the  fitness  of  the  officer 
or  to  the  public  welfare,  and  Mr.  Eaton  well  calls  the  Forty- 
fifth  Article  of  Masrna  Charta  the  first  Civil  Service  Rule. 


IV  INTKODUCTION. 

By  that  ai-ticle  the  king  engaged  not  to  "  mahe  any  justices, 
constables,  sheriffs,  or  bailiffs  but  of  such  as  know  the  law  of 
the  realm."  This  was  a  declaration  that  administrative  offices 
should  be  filled  by  those  who  were  competent,  and  not  merely 
by  royal  favor. 

Pursuing  his  interesting  researches  from  epoch  to  epoch,  Mr. 
Eaton's  report  has  taken,  naturally  and  fortunately,  the  form 
of  a  history  of  the  development  of  the  Civil  Service  in  Eng- 
land, from  the  earliest  day  down  to  its  present  efficient  and 
excellent  condition.  It  is  a  comprehensive  manual  of  informa- 
tion upon  the  subject,  and  there  is  no  other  work  of  the  kind. 
It  answers  the  historical,  theoretical,  and  practical  questions 
which  are  asked  by  every  inquirer,  the  answers  to  which  have 
been  hitherto  very  difficult  to  find.  The  work,  indeed,  is  a 
timely  and  valuable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  the  re- 
form, as  well  as  an  exceedingly  interesting  studj^  in  a  neg- 
lected branch  of  historical  and  political  inquiry.  The  history 
of  the  movement  for  reform  in  the  United  States  does  not  fall 
within  the  scope  of  Mr.  Eaton's  work,  nor  could  he  properlj', 
in  this  report,  express  at  length  his  views  of  the  results  that 
liave  been  accomplished  under  the  present  administration.  Yet 
he  treats  fully  of  those  principles  of  a  sound  service  which  are 
common  to  both  countries,  and  he  presents  a  complete  and  well- 
reasoned  argument  for  their  enforcement  in  the  United  States. 
There  are  few  points  which  any  serious  thinker  upon  the  sub- 
ject will  find  to  have  escaped  Mr.  Eaton's  attention,  while  the 
evidence  of  care  in  the  prepai-ation  of  the  work  is  sure  to  com- 
mand sympathy  and  confidence. 

The  reform  movement  which  ended  in  the  appointment  of 
the  commission  of  which  Mr.  Eaton  is  chairman,  was  begun  by 
Mr.  Thomas  Allen  Jenckes,  a  representative  in  Congress  from 
Rhode  Island  from  1863  until  1871.  His  attention,  and  that 
of  many  others,  had  been  turned  to  the  subject  at  the  close 


INTKODUCTION.  V 

of  the  war  by  tlie  enormous  increase  of  the  number  of  places 
within  the  patronage  of  the  Government,  and  by  the  new  and 
extraordinary  doctrines  and  practices  in  regard  to  their  distri- 
bution. These  doctrines  and  practices  threatened  popular  gov- 
ernment itself.  The  "  spoils  "  system  introduced  by  President 
Jackson,  which  is  now  stigmatized  as  the  "American  system," 
imperils  not  only  the  purity,  economy,  and  efficiency  of  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  Government,  but  it  destroys  confidence  in 
the  method  of  popular  government  by  party.  It  creates  a  mer- 
cenary political  class,  an  oligarchy  of  stipendiaries,  a  bureau- 
cracy of  the  woi^st  kind,  which  controls  parties  with  relentless 
despotism,  imposing  upon  them  at  the  elections  issues  which 
are  prescribed  not  by  the  actual  feeling  and  interest  of  the 
country  but  solely  by  the  necessities  and  profit  of  the  oligar- 
ch}', while,  to  secure  this  advantage,  party-spirit,  the  constant 
and  mortal  peril  of  republics,  is  inflamed  to  the  utmost.  It  is 
a  system  which,  by  requiring  complete  servility  to  the  will  of 
the  oligarclw,  both  as  the  tenure  of  minor  place  and  as  the  con- 
dition of  political  promotion,  destroys  the  individual  political 
independence  M-liich  is  the  last  defence  of  liberty.  An  elec- 
tion thus  becomes  merely  the  registry  of  the  decree  of  a  cabal. 
Government  by  the  people,  four-fifths  of  whom  simply  vote 
for  the  ticket  or  the  measures  prepared  by  the  oligarchy,  sinks 
practically  into  the  empire  of  a  corrupt  ring.  In  a  country 
where  every  citizen  ought  to  take  an  active  part  in  practical 
politics,  this  system  disgusts  with  politics,  and  repels  from  them 
good  citizens  who  cannot  compete  with  the  professional  politi- 
cal class  which  gives  all  its  time  to  a  pursuit  by  which  it  prof- 
its. The  system  necessarily  excludes  able  men  from  public 
life,  and  makes  a  great  many  of  the  conspicuous  names  in  poli- 
tics little  illustrative  of  the  real  leadership  of  American  abili- 
ty, enterprise,  and  progress.  The  name  of  politician  and  office- 
holder becomes  a  byword,  and   casts  ridicule  upon  the  very 


Vi  INTRODUCTION. 

name  of  reform.  How  complete  was  the  subjugation  of  pub- 
lic sentiment  in  this  country  within  a  few  years,  and  how  au- 
dacious tlie  effrontery  of  the  spoils  system,  may  be  inferred 
from  the  deliberate  argument  of  one  of  Tweed's  political  attor- 
neys, that  such  "  rings  "  are  inevitable  and  indispensable  in  a 
free  country ;  and  from  the  contemptuous  bitterness  with  which 
a  leader  of  the  party  opposed  to  Tweed  echoed  the  same  senti- 
ment, by  sneering  that  when  Dr.  Johnson  described  patriotism 
as  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel,  he  did  jiot  know  the  infinite 
possibilities  of  the  word  reform.  Tliere  is  no  more  startling 
sign  of  political  demoralization  than  the  craft  which  turns  the 
follies  of  reformers  into  blows  at  reform.  This  situation  has 
been  plainly  seen  by  the  most  intelligent  observers  of  our  poli- 
tics. In  the  second  volume  of  his  Constitutional  Illstm'y  of 
the  United  States,  Yon  Ilolst  quotes  Senator  Marcy's  notorious 
declaration  that"  the  politicians  of  New  York  *  *  *  see  noth- 
ing wrong  in  the  rule  that  to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  of 
the  enemy ;"  and  adds,  "  From  that  hour  this  maxim  has  re- 
mained an  inviolable  principle  of  American  politicians,  and  it 
is  owing  only  to  the  astonishing  vitality  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  to  the  altogether  unsurpassed  and  unsur- 
passable favor  of  their  natural  conditions,  that  the  State  has 
not  succumbed  under  the  onerous  burden  of  the  curse." 

Mr.  Jenckes  began  the  general  discussion  of  the  subject  in 
a  report  of  the  Joint  Select  Committee  on  Ketrenchment,  of 
which  he  was  chairman.  It  was  presented  to  the  House  of 
Kepresentatives  on  the  25th  of  May,  1868,  and,  with  its  appen- 
dix, contains  a  mass  of  information  which  shows  how  deep  was 
his  interest  and  how  careful  his  investigation.  The  question 
of  reform  had  been  very  fully  considered  in  Eugland  for  sev- 
eral years  when  Mr.  Jenckes  began  his  inquiries,  and  he  en- 
tered into  correspondence  with  Sir  Stafford  II.  Northcote  and 
Sir  Charles  E.  Ti'evelyan,  who  wrote  the  masterly  report  upon 


f2  NORTH  WASHINGTON  S(fR. 
INTRODUCTION.  vii 

tlie  oi'jranizatioii  of  the  Permanent  Civil  Service  in  Great  Brit- 
ain,  dated  N"ovember  23dj  1853.  This  report,  with  the  Bhie 
Book  called  "Papers  relating  to  tlie  Reorganization  of  the 
Civil  Service,"  had  opened  the  whole  question  in  England.  The 
Blue  Book  contained  the  elaborate  opinions  of  leading  Eng- 
lishmen in  every  department  of  pnvate  and  public  life,  and 
presents  completely  the  argument,  the  objections,  and  the  refu- 
tations. Ko  objection  has  been  suggested  in  this  country  which 
is  not  satisfactorily  answered  in  this  Blue  Book.  The  instruct- 
ive reports  and  speeches  of  Mr.  Jenckes,  although  treated  in 
Congress  with  little  consideration,  aroused  great  interest  in  the 
public  mind,  and  led  to  some  discussion  in  the  press.  The  law 
of  1871,  authorizing  the  inquiry  under  which  President  Grant 
appointed  the  commission  of  which  Mr.  Eaton  is  now  chair- 
man, was  the  last  public  service  of  Mr.  Jenckes ;  but  during 
the  short  remainder  of  his  life  his  interest  in  the  question  was 
unabated.  His  valuable  counsel  was  sought  by  the  commission 
in  the  early  days  of  their  labors,  and  it  was  most  Millingly 
given. 

The  rules  recommended  to  President  Grant,  and  adopted  by 
him,  were  never  effectively  carried  into  practice  at  any  point 
of  the  service.  The  reasons  for  this  failure  were  many,  and  it 
is  not  necessary  to  consider  them  here.  They  all  served,  how- 
ever, to  show  more  clearly  the  extent  and  the  power  of  the 
evils  of  the  system  of  patronage  in  the  Civil  Service,  and  the 
necessity  of  reform.  The  subject  having  attracted  public  at- 
tention, was  cautiously  mentioned  in  the  platforms  of  all  politi- 
cal parties,  but  the  allusions  were  evasive,  and  were  evidently 
intended  only  to  propitiate  a  desire  for  reform  which  the  party 
manasrers  did  not  believe  to  be  stronor  or  ireneral  enough  to 
compel  its  gratification.  The  subject,  however,  is  one  that  nec- 
essarily interests  intelligent  citizens,  and,  although  derided  by 
politicians,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  IIayes,in  his  letter  ac- 


Vm  IXTEODUCTIOX. 

cepting  the  nomination  for  the  Presidency,  spoke  of  reform  in 
the  Civil  Service  as  one  of  the  questions  so  important  as  to 
demand  an  expression  of  his  convictions  in  regard  to  it.  He 
declared  that  the  resolution  upon  the  subject,  in  the  platform 
of  the  Convention  that  nominated  him,  was  of  "paramount 
interest ;"  and,  after  a  vigorous  expression  of  his  views,  he  con- 
cluded by  saying,  "  Tlie  reform  should  be  thorough,  radical, 
and  complete.  We  should  return  to  the  principles  and  practice 
of  the  founders  of  the  Government,  supplying  by  legislation, 
when  needed,  that  which  was  formerly  the  established  cus- 

'  tom.  They  neither  expected  nor  desired  from  the  public 
officers  any  partisan  service.     They  meant  that  public  officers 

|,  should  give  their  whole  service  to  the  Government  and  to  the 
people.  They  meant  that  the  officer  should  be  secure  in  his 
tenure  so  long  as  his  personal  character  remained  untarnished 
and  the  performance  of  his  duties  satisfactory^  If  elected,  I 
shall  conduct  the  administration  of  the  Government  upon 
these  principles,  and  all  constitutional  powers  vested  in  the 
Executive  will  be  employed  to  establish  this  reform." 

Notwithstanding  the  strong  declarations  of  the  Republican 
platform  and  of  the  candidate  upon  this  subject,  the  managei's 
of  both  parties  carefully  gave  the  chief  prominence  during 
the  canvass  of  187G  to  other  questions,  and  there  was  no  gen- 
eral popular  discussion  of  reform.  But  in  liis  inaugural  ad- 
dress President  Hayes  unequivocally  reaffirmed  the  views  of 
liis  letter  of  acceptance.  lie  said, "  I  ask  the  attention  of  the 
public  to  the  paramount  necessity  of  reform  in  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice— a  reform  not  merely  as  to  certain  abuses  and  practices  of 
so-called  official  patronage  which  have  come  to  have  the  sanc- 
tion of  usage  in  the  several  departments  of  our  Government, 
but  a  change  in  the  system  of  appointment  itself — a  reform 

i  that  shall  be  thorough,  radical,  and  complete — a  return  to  the 
principles  and  practices  of  the  founders  of  the  Government." 


INTEODUCTION.  IX 

The  President  gave  tlie  most  conspicuous  proof  of  his  sincer- 
ity in  selecting  for  the  Secretaryship  of  the  Interior  Mr.  Carl 
Schurz,  who  is  known  as  a  faithful  friend  of  reform. 

Durins:  the  administration  of  President  Haves,  althou£:h  its 
conduct  upon  this  subject  has  been  inexplicably  inconsistent, 
and  although  no  general  and  uniform  system  of  determining 
minor  appointments  has  been  adopted,  yet  very  much  more 
reform  has  been  accomplished  than  under  any  previous  ad- 
ministration. The  abuse  of  Congressional  dictation  of  nomi-  I 
nations  has  been  in  a  great  degree  remedied.  The  usurpation 
of  executive  power,  called  the  courtesy  of  the  Senate,  by  which 
the  Senator  or  Senators  from  a  State  control  the  confirmation 
of  all  appointments  in  it,  has  been  in  a  conspicuous  instance 
overthrown.  The  interference,  in  caucuses  and  conventions,  of  / 
ofiice-holders,  with  all  their  patronage  to  buy  votes,  has  been  j 
pi'oliibited,  and  had  the  prohibition  been  Aigorously  enforced, 
the  results  would  have  been  very  much  more  favorable  to  the 
rapid  progress  of  reform.  The  robbery  known  as  political  as- 
sessments, a  tax  levied  by  party  committees  upon  ofiice-holders 
as  the  price  of  their  places — a  tax  which  puts  up  the  public 
service  at  auction,  and  illustrates  the  degrading  tenure  of  ofiice 
under  a  system  of  patronage  —  has  been  strictly  forbidden; 
and  so  far  as  the  President  can  defend  the  incumbents  by  the 
frankest  expression  of  his  views,  and  of  his  determination  that 
tliey  shall  not  suffer  for  refusing  to  be  robbed,  the  abuse  has 
been  corrected.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  evil  has  been  veiy 
much  lessened,  but  there  is  no  doubt,  also,  that  there  is  still 
connivance  at  the  practice  on  the  part  of  many  superior  of- 
ficei*s,  and  the  only  really  effective  remedy  lies  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  su]^)erior  officers  who  are  sincerely  resolved  to  stop  it. 
Peform  thrives  upon  moral  confidence,  and  nothing  would  de- 
velop faith  in  it  so  fully  as  the  knowledge  that  the  offices  of 
great  patronage  were  filled  by  men  thoroughly  persuaded  of 


X  INTKODUCTION. 

the  necessity  of  reform,  and  courageous  enough  resohitely  to 
enforce  it. 

The  great  measure  of  reform,  however,  which  has  been  ac- 
complislicd  under  tlie  administration  of  Mr,  Hayes,  is  the  sub- 
stitution of  what  Mr.  Eaton  justly  calls  the  merit  system  for 
favoritism  in  appointment  at  the  New  York  Custom-house  and 
Post-office,  the  two  chief  offices  in  these  departments  in  the 
country.  The  faithful  enforcement  at  these  offices  of  the  rule 
that  minor  appointments  shall  be  made  only  upon  the  proved 
merit  of  applicants,  in  a  competitive  examination,  has  shown 
conclusively  the  practicability  of  the  system.  All  applicants 
have  been  submitted,  without  fear  or  favor,  to  equal  tests,  and 
the  selections  for  appointment  have  been  made  in  the  same 
way  from  those  who  have  proved  their  superioi'ity.  The  char- 
acter of  the  persons  so  appointed,  and  the  value  of  their  ser- 
vices as  compared  M'ith  those  appointed  under  the  old  system 
of  political  and  personal  favoritism,  are  but  additional  proofs 
of  the  excellence  of  the  system.  In  both  of  these  offices,  how- 
ever, the  reform  has  been  applied  only  to  original  appointments 
in  certain  grades,  and  to  certain  promotions.  The  service  in 
both  is  full  of  those  who  were  appointed  under  the  old  system 
of  favor  and  reward,  and  who  naturally  cherish  its  traditions. 
This  does  not  produce  an  atmosphere  of  reform,  and  it  malces 
abuse  easier;  but  it  is  incontestable  that  tlie  simplicity  of  the 
method  and  the  great  value  of  the  result  have  been  demon- 
strated at  these  two  chief  points.  If  practicable  there,  reform 
is  practicable  everywhere. 

Tliese  are  results  which  are  due  wholly  to  the  sincei-e  con- 
viction and  purpose  of  the  President,  and,  however  imperfect 
and  incomplete,  they  are  of  great  importance  and  significance. 
It  was  in  pureuance  of  his  general  purpose  that  he  asked  Mr. 
Eaton,  as  chairman  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  personally 
to  conduct  the  inquiry  of  wliich  this  work  is  the  fruit.     Mr. 


IXTRODUCnOX.  XI 

Eaton's  report  shows  conclusively  from  the  experience  of  Great 
Britain  how  the  radical  vice  of  our  sj-steni  of  appointment  in 
the  Civil  Service  can  be  corrected.  The  modern  party  patron- 
a2:e  system  in  Entjland  began  in  1693,  and  continued  until  the 
beginning  of  the  reform  in  1S53.  Instead  of  the  "  clean  sweep," 
upon  every  party  success,  which  is  the  disgrace  of  our  repub- 
lic, only  certain  high  oflScers  now  go  out  in  England  when 
their  party  is  defeated.  "  We  limit,"  says  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  to 
a  few  scores  of  persons  the  removals  and  appointments  on  these 
occasions,  although  our  ministers  seem  to  us  not  infrequently 
to  be  more  sharply  severed  from  one  another  in  principle 
and  tendency  than  are  the  successive  Presidents  of  the  Great 
Union."  The  legitimate  sphere  of  personal  political  ambition 
in  a  free  country  is  that  of  competition  before  tlie  public  for 
posts  of  legislation  and  of  political  administration.  But  the 
details  of  the  Civil  Service  belong  to  a  business,  not  to  a  politi- 
cal administration,  and  the  line  between  proper  political  and 
non- political  places  is  perfectly  well  defined.  Wlien  King 
James  II.  insisted  that  nobody  should  have  an  ale  or  beer  li- 
cense who  did  not  favor  his  policy,  he  was  only  asserting  the 
modern  principle  that  nobody  shall  be  an  inspector  in  the 
Custom-house,  or  shall  deliver  letters  at  the  Post-ofiice,  unless 
he  is  a  supporter  of  the  dominant  party.  "We  denounce,  as  in- 
tolerable tyranny,  Cromwell's  test  of  Presbyterian  ism,  and  the 
Test  Acts  of  Charles  II.,  which  made  religious  profession  of 
another  kind  an  essential  qualification  for  holding  minor  office. 
But  they  were  no  more  tyrannical,  or  intolerable,  or  absurd 
than  our  party  tests.  Sir  Bobert  Walpole's  use  of  the  Secret 
Service  money  to  buy  votes  in  Parliament  was  no  worse  than 
buying  votes  with  patronage  in  a  Convention.  I  have  known 
an  officer  of  the  customs  who  intended,  as  a  delegate  in  a  party 
Convention,  to  vote  against  the  candidate  favored  by  the  col- 
lector, who  was  also  a  delegate.     Tiie  collector,  learning  the 


XI I  INTEODUCTION. 

intention  of  liis  subordinate,  gave  him  the  choice  of  voting  as 
the  collector  wished,  or  losing  his  place.  The  subordinate  had 
a  wife  and  family  dependent  upon  him,  and  he  yielded.  This 
was  Sir  liobert  Walpole's  method,  but  his  bribery  was  manlier 
than  the  collector's. 

Reform  of  the  system  which  necessarily  produces  such 
abuses  is  no  more  an  experiment  than  the  reform  of  any 
other  evil.  The  system  of  civil  appointment  for  the  public 
service  by  patronage  and  favoritism,  like  the  Corporation  and 
Test  Acts — like  all  other  forms  of  injustice  and  abuse — when 
it  is  challenged  by  advancing  civilization  and  greater  intelli- 
gence, must  show  why  it  should  not  be  abolished.  The  abuses 
which  it  is  said  cannot  be  reformed  are  merely  surviving 
forms  of  old  venality  and  wrong,  which  have  been  univer- 
sally condemned  as  monstrous  and  intolerable,  and  whose 
gradual  disappearance  marks  the  progress  of  society.  The 
readers  of  this  book  will  decide  whether  the  abuses  of  the 
worst  days  of  English  party  politics — abuses  which  the  good 
sense  of  England  has  entirel}^  removed — are  necessary  either 
for  the  maintenance  of  party  government  or  for  the  promo- 
tion of  political  morality  in  the  United  States. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Introductory 1 

II.  The  Feudal  Spoils  System 12 

III.  Influence  of  Despotism  on  Administration 39 

IV.  Administration  under  the  Tudors  and  until  Cromwell 44 

V.  Cromwell's  Administrative  System 53 

VI.  Public  Service  under  Charles  II.  and  James  II 60 

VII.  The  New  System  of  Administration  under  William  III CD 

VIII.  Party  Government  from  Anne  to  George  III 82 

IX.  Administration  under  George  III 102 

X.  The  Reform  Period  after  the  Fall  of  Lord  Bute 1 20 

XI.  The  Improved  Condition  after  the  Fall  of  Lord  North 128 

XII.  Administration  under  George  IV 144 

XIII.  Partisan  System  waning  and  Examinations  introduced 155 

XIV.  Final  Contest  between  Patronage  and  Open  Competition 169 

XV.  Open  Competition  introduced  into  British  India 1*77 

XVI.  Government  Inquiry  and  Report  leading  to  the  Introduction  of  the 

New  System  in  1853 181 

XVII.  How  the  New  System  was  received 195 

XVIII.  The  First  Order  for  a  Civil  Service  Commission  and  Competitive 

Examinations  —  May,  1855 203 

XIX.  The  first  Five  Years  under  the  New  System 208 

XX.  Parliamentary  Investigation  of  the  New  System  in  1860 216 

XXL  Development  of  the  New  System  from  1860  to  1870 223 

XXIL  The  Order  for  Open  Competition  in  1870 228 

XXIII.  First  Experience  of  Open  Competition 234 

XXIV.  Parliamentary  Inquiry  into  the  Civil  Service  in  1873.  ...    238 

XXV.  The  Executive  Investigation  of  1874 244 

XXVI.  The  Results  of  the  Merit  System  based  on  Open  Competition  in 

British  India 248 

XXVIL  The  Practical  Operation  of  the  Merit  System  since  1875 259 

XXVIII.  Concerning  Parts  of  the  old  Spoils  System  excluded  by  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States 266 

XXIX.  Some  Practical  Tendencies  and  Relations  of  the  Reformed  Method. .  288 

XXX.  The  Merit  System  in  the  Great  Departments 297 

XXXI.  Social,  Moral,  and  International  Bearings  of  the  New  System 317 

XXXII.  A  Summary,  and  the  Significance  of  the  Reform  Movement 342 

XXXIII.  The  Bearing  of  British  Experience  upon  Civil  Service  Reform  in  the 

United  States 361 

Appendix  A ^29 

Appendix  B ^^^ 

Appendix  C ^'^^ 


CIYIL  SEEYIOE 


IN 


GREAT   BRITAIN 


INTRODUCTORY. 

CHAPTEE  I. 

The  character  of  our  early  politics. — The  sources  of  our  Constitution. — Ad- 
ministrative abuses  little  anticipated. — The  forecast  of  Washington. — 

■  Tlie  changes  of  a  century. — Present  views  as  to  reform  in  this  country. — 
First  study  of  administrative  questions  in  Great  Britain. — Reasons  why 
we  should  consider  British  precedents. — Attention  to  Civil  Service  Re- 
form on  the  part  of  the  principal  nations. — Our  neglect  of  the  subject. — 
Extent  of  reforms  in  the  leading  European  States. — The  situation  in  Can- 
ada.— Causes  of  our  neglect  of  administrative  questions. — Party  despot- 
ism.— Different  theories  as  to  a  reform  polic3^ — The  value  to  us  of  British 
experience. — Some  of  the  main  questions  to  be  considered,  and  tlieir  bear- 
ing on  our  politics. — No  mere  imitation  of  British  precedents  desirable. — 
Wiiy  we  must  go  back  in  our  inquiry  to  first  principles  and  to  the  origin 
of  abuses. — The  great  variety  and  extent  of  British  administration. — Ad- 
ministration in  India. — Our  evils  all  dealt  with  in  the  experience  of  Great 
Britain. — The  policj'-  on  which  the  leading  nations  have  acted  in  making 
reforms.— The  exposure  of  abuses  a  patriotic  duty. 

An  English  historian  declares  that  "  no  nation  ever  started 
on  its  career  with  a  larger  proportion  of  strong  character  or  a 
higher  sense  of  moral  conviction  than  the  English  colonies  in 
America.  They  almost  entirely  escaped  the  corruption  that 
so  deeply  tainted  the  government  at  home. ' '  ' 

It  is  miiversally  admitted  that  our  early  leaders  in  politics 
embodied,  in  a  remarkable  degree,  the  ability  and  the  high 
moral  tone  of  their  generation.     There  is,  perhaps,  no  more 

Lecky's  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  ii.,  p.  2, 
herein  elsewhere  cited  as  1  or  2  Lecky. 
1 


2  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN". 

striking  proof  of  tlieir  statesmaiisliip  than  the  fact  that,  when 
heated  from  recent  battle-fields  and  filled  with  righteous  in- 
dignation at  the  injustice  of  the  mother  country,  they  yet 
brought  to  the  great  work  of  forming  a  constitution  judg- 
ments so  calm  and  unprejudiced  that  they  were  able  to  con- 
sider her  precedents  in  the  same  judicial  spirit  in  which  they 
considered  those  of  other  nations.  Men  of  narrower  minds 
might  have  rejected  all  the  political  wisdom  of  their  race. 
They  might  have  given  us  a  constitution  as  original  and  as 
disastrous  as  the  constitutions  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  France. 
We  can  better  appreciate  the  enlightened  spirit  which  ani- 
mated our  early  statesmen,  if  we  consider  the  narrow  preju- 
dices which  even  now  stand  in  the  way  of  improved  methods 
which  are  denounced  as  of  foreign  origin. 

The  authors  of  our  constitution  accepted  good  material 
wherever  they  found  it ;  but  from  no  quarter  did  they  gather 
so  much  as  from  the  experience  of  England.  The  theory  of 
executis^e  power ;  the  great  divisions  of  government  into 
three  departments,  with  well-defined  jurisdictions  ;  two  houses 
of  legislation  with  the  whole  body  of  parliamentary  law  ;  trial 
by  jury  ;  the  habeas  corpus  ;  the  common  law,  with  its  vast 
stores  of  wisdom,  extending  to  all  business  and  all  personal  re- 
lations ;  the  long  series  of  statutes  so  far  as  not  repugnant  to 
the  new  system  ;  criminal  definitions  and  procedure  in  all 
their  larger  parts  ;  the  theory  of  military  as  subordinate  to  civil 
authority  ;  the  political  conception  of  domestic  and  individual 
rights  and  duties — all  these  they  drew  from  the  same  paternal 
source  from  which  had  flowed  their  blood,  their  language, 
and  their  civilization. 

With  wise  adjustments,  they  incorporated  all  these  political 
elements  into  their  new  system  of  government.  That  govern- 
ment, however,  was  not  to  be  a  mere  imitation,  but  an  origi- 
nal and  true  Republic.  They,  therefore,  rejected  royalty  and 
primogeniture,  the  entire  feudal  theory,  all  class  distinctions, 
and  all  mingling  of  religion  wdth  politics.  In  their  place, 
they  proclaimed  common  rights,  equality  before  the  law,  and 
freedom  of  speech  and  of  worship.  The  new  government,  for 
the  very  reason  that  it  discards  and  rises  above  mere  selfish 
interests,  more  than  any  that  has  existed  in  modern  times, 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BmTl&^^^^^**QTOH  SQU.^ 

both  appeals  to  and  requires  general  intelligence  and  public 
virtue.  ' '  In  proportion  as  the  structure  of  a  government 
gives  force  to  public  opinion,  it  is  essential  that  public  opinion 
should  be  enlightened."  " 

At  its  creation  the  greatest  dangers,  the  absorbing  questions 
affecting  the  new  government,  concerned  rights,  liberty,  and 
independence.  Corruption  bred  in  the  daily  work  of  adminis- 
tration, partisan  tyranny  and  debasement  growing  out  of  con- 
tentions for  patronage,  office,  and  power,  were  almost  un- 
known, and  they  were  but  feebly  imagined,  in  the  first  genera- 
tion. It  was  natural  that  no  very  definite  provisions  should  be 
made  against  such  sources  of  danger.  "Washington,  apparent- 
ly, looked  upon  parties  as  an  evil,  and  perhaps  thought  they 
might  be  avoided.  The  great  power  of  removal  from  ofiice 
was  left  to  mere  inference,  and  it  is,  therefore,  without  ex- 
pressed limitation  or  safeguard.  But.  that  generation  must 
be  counted  wise  and  patriotic  which  provides  a  remedy  for 
the  evils  which  it  knows.  Certainly,  statesmen  who  nobly 
performed  the  duties  of  their  own  trying  times,  are  not  to  be 
complained  of  because  they  did  not  take  precautions  against 
abuses  which  were  only  to  afflict  the  country  in  future  genera- 
tions. No  nation  had,  at  that  time,  protected  itself  against 
the  evils  of  corrupt  patronage  and_ favoritism  in  bestowing 
oflace.  In  no  nation  but  England  was  there  even  freedom 
enough  to  enable  great  parties  to  exist. 

A  century  has  passed,  and  it  has  produced  great  changes 
in  the  old  country  and  in  the  new.  In  Great  Britain,  these 
changes  have  struck  deeper  both  into  social  life  and  into  the 
political  system  than  with  us.  But  in  the  United  States  they 
have  long  since  made  administrative  abuses  a  source  of  solici- 
tude and  humiliation.  They  are  now  recognized  as  a  grave 
problem  in  our  public  affairs.  Recently,  and  for  the  first 
time,  these  abuses  have  been  brought  into  the  foreground  of 
a  presidential  contest.  The  promise  of  their  removal  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  party  pledges  before  the  people.  Civil 
service  reform  has  become  an  issue  in  national  politics. 

Administrative  abuses  are  of  a  kind  that  will  naturally  grow 

'  Washington's  Farewell  Address. 


4  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT  BRITAIN". 

as  wealth  accumulates,  population  becomes  more  dense,  and 
public  affairs  increase  in  volume  and  complexity.  They  raise 
issues  in  their  nature  as  permanent  as  the  selfishness  and  par- 
tisanship from  which  they  are  born,  and  the  government 
wliich  they  threaten.  Few  thoughtful  persons  are  so  blind  as 
not  to  see  that  a  great  reform  is  essential  to  avert  a  great 
calamity.  How  to  bring  it  about  is  the  question.  There  is  a 
profound  sense  of  need  to  purify  public  administration,  to  ar- 
rest partisan  tryanny,  and  to  bestow  office  upon  men  of  worth 
and  capacity.  But  the  public  mind  gropes  and  hesitates  and 
doubts  ;  having  no  clear  conception  as  to  what  is  possible,  and 
IK)  definite  method  upon  which  it  inclines  to  act.  A  few 
statesmen  very  early  comprehended,  and  the  popular  mind 
is  now  beginning  to  comprehend,  that,  though  the  foi*m- 
ing  of  a  wise  and  just  government  is  the  greatest  acliievement 
of  a  people,  its  honest  and  vigorous  administration  involves 
perils  and  difficulties  little  anticipated  in  the  youth  of  nations.' 
With  astonishment,  and  a  sort  of  despair,  the  people  of  t^ie 
United  States  now  find — as  every  older  nation  has  found — • 
that  the  question  of  good  methods,  of  honest  ways,  and  of 
faithful  servants,  in  administration,  must  take  its  place  among 
the  grave  and  the  j)ermanent  problems  of  statesmanship. 

There  is  nothing  more  remarkable  in  the  experience  of 
Great  Britain,  during  the  j^ast  century,  than  the  measures  she 
has  taken  to  reform  administrative  abuses.  "What  we  have 
most  neglected  in  politics,  she  has  most  studied — the  science 
of  administration.  Chatham  and  Burke  set  the  example  of 
giving  that  subject  a  foremost  place  in  the  politics  of  their 
country  ;  and  during  the  last  fifty  years  it  has  conmianded  the 
earnest  attention  of  her  greatest  statesmen.  She  has  brought 
about  changes  which  have  elevated  the  moral  tone  of  her 

'  Washingtoa's  experience  in  war  strongly  convinced  him  of  the  need  of 
competent  officers  in  the  military  service.  The  Academy  at  West  Point  has 
been  the  result.  Simple  and  easy  as  civil  administration  was  in  his  day, 
seven  years  la  the  executive  chair  caused  him  to  advise  even  the  extreme 
measure  of  a  national  university,  "  a  primary  object  of  which  should  be  the 
education  of  our  youth  in  the  science  of  government."  (Washington's  Eighth 
Annual  Message.)  In  his  sixtli  annual  message,  President  Jefferson  sug- 
gested an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  to  enable  "  a  national  establish- 
ment for  education"  to  be  created  and  endowed. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  5 

official  life — reforms  wliicli  really  constitute  an  era  in  her  his- 
tory. They  are  as  a  silver  edge  upon  the  dark  cloud  wliich 
hangs  over  British  administration  in  former  centuries.  While 
this  great  work  has  been  going  on  in  the  mother  country,  we 
have  fallen  away  from  the  better  methods  of  our  early  his- 
tory. We  have  come  upon  a  period  when  we  mourn  over  the 
absence  of  the  political  virtues  recognized  in  the  past — when 
not  a  few  good  citizens  despair  of  again  seeing  that  purity  of 
official  life  which  prevailed  during  our  first  generations.  The 
more  thoughtful  are  asking  whether  the  abuses  which  have 
been  so  rapidly  developed  are  due  to  our  neglects  as  citizens,  or 
are  inevitable  under  republican  institutions.  The  republican 
theory  is  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion  on  charges  ap- 
parently never  imagined  by  its  authors.  Seeing  how  much 
better  and  more  quietly  administration  is  carried  on  in  Great 
Britain  than  in  the  United  States,  some  gloomy  and  some 
aristocratic  spirits  are  ready  to  despair  of  the  republic.  They 
attribute  the  obvious  superiority  to  causes  original  and  in- 
evitable in  the  institutions  of  their  own  country.  If  faith 
in  the  republican  system  has  not  been  impaired,  respect  for 
official  life  has  been  seriously  undermined.  Obviously,  fun- 
damental principles,  not  less  than  grave  interests,  are  involved. 
Nothing  would  seem,  therefore,  to  be  more  appropriate  or 
more  in  the  spirit  of  the  great  work  of  our  fathere  than  to  in- 
quire whether,  in  the  later  experience  of  Great  Britain — 
which  is  only  a  prolongation  of  that  from  which  they  made 
such  large  selections — there  may  not  be  something  adapted  to 
our  system  and  worthy  of  our  consideration.  Are  her  reforms 
based  on  principles  of  which  only  a  monarchy  can  take  advan- 
tage, or  are  they  equally  available  under  republican  institu- 
tions ?  Can  we  remove  our  abuses  without  changing  the  form 
of  our  government  ? 

But,  were  there  no  suggestions  from  the  highest  precedents 
in  our  history,  it  would  seem  to  be  but  the  statesmanship  of 
national  interest — at  a  time  when  the  leading  states  of  the 
world  have  made  it  a  national  policy  to  bring  into  comparison 
even  the  works  of  mechanical  industry — to  make  ourselves  ac- 
quainted with  the  measures  through  which  the  freest  and  most 
enlightened  of  the  great  nations  of  Enropo  lias  elevated  the 


6  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN". 

cliaracter  of  her  pnblic  administration.  'No  nation  can  afford 
to  be  ill-informed  as  to  the  methods  by  which  other  nations 
advance  their  strength  and  prosperity.  More  and  more,  in 
later  years,  the  leading  governments  have  comprehended,  and 
have  acted  npon  the  theory,  that  their  peace  and  prosperity 
are  greatly  dependent,  not  merely  on  officers  in  very  high 
positions,  but  upon  the  fidelity  and  ability  of  those  in  the  public 
service  down  to  the  very  lowest  places.  All  the  leading  na- 
tions, except  the  United  States,  have  recently,  and  as  a  matter 
of  policy,  made  searching  investigations  not  only  into  their 
own  administrative  methods  but  into  the  methods  of  other  gov- 
ernments. These  inquiries  have  extended  to  civdl  and  military 
administration  alike  ;  and  neither  prejudice  nor  partisan  inter- 
ests have  been  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  improvements. 
Prussia  set  the  example,  after  her  humiliation  by  Bonaparte 
in  1815,  and  her  j)osition  is  the  fruit  of  her  policy.  The  j) res- 
ent Emperor  of  Kussia  acted  in  the  same  spirit  when  he  en- 
tered upon  the  reform  policy  which  has  done  so  much  to  raise 
his  country  from  the  degradation  it  had  reached  under  the 
corrupt  civil  and  military  service  of  former  reigns.  Great 
Britain  had  investigated  the  excellent  methods  of  France  and 
Prussia,  before  1851.  In  later  years.  Great  Britain  has  steadily 
acted  upon  the  principle  that  her  prosperity  and  safety  depend 
on  the  character  of  her  administration,  and  that  the  surest  way 
to  correct  its  abuses  is  to  investigate  and  expose  them.  The 
United  States,  on  the  contrary,  have,  until  very  lately,  given 
but  little  attention  to  the  growing  abuses  of  administration  at 
home  ;  and  they  have  utterly  neglected  the  methods  through 
which  riv^al  nations  have  brought  about  great  reforms. 

This  neglect  has  been  the  result  of  no  general  indifference  to 
foreign  matters  on  the  part  of  the  American  people.  They 
have  rather  been  conspicuous  for  the  zeal  and  success  with 
which,  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  they  have  sought  informa- 
tion concerning  productions,  business,  and  every  process  of 
science  and  industry.  They  are  far  better  informed  concern- 
ing all  the  ways  of  raising  crops  and  all  the  breeds  of  cattle, 
horses,  sheep,  and  swine  in  Great  Britain,  than  they  are  con- 
cerning the  means  by  which  her  official  life  has  been  raised 
and  her  politics  purified.     Our  statesmen  are  familiar  enough 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  7 

witli  the  history  of  Magna  Carta,  the  Habeas  Corpus,  the  Bill 
of  Rights,  the  Act  of  Settlement,  and  all  the  great  events 
which  preceded  our  revolution.  But  what  study  have  they 
given  to  the  principles  and  the  carefully  matured  methods  of 
administration  upon  which  the  greatest  British  statesmen  of 
this  century  have  bent  their  minds  ?  The  history  and  devel- 
opment of  literature,  science  and  art,  in  every  leading  Euro- 
pean State,  have  been  carefully  studied  by  American  scholars, 
and  they  are  a  part  of  the  cherished  instniction  of  our  edu- 
cated classes.  But  what  attention  has  been  bestowed  upon 
those  profound  and  salutary  systems  of  administration  which 
have,  during  the  present  century,  transformed  the  politics  of 
Europe  and  made  learning  and  character  the  handmaids  and 
strength  of  governments  ? 

"  All  the  governments  of  Europe  have,  in  our  time,  singu- 
larly improved  the  science  of  administration  /  they  do  more 
things,  and  do  every  thing  with  more  order,  more  celerity,  and 
at  less  expense.* 

"During  the  last  three  quarters  of  a  century  a  complete 
revolution  has  taken  place  in  the  civil  service  of  the  principle 
European  States.  Kigorous  and  impartial  tests  of  qualification 
have  been  applied  ;  and,  where  formerly  were  incompetency, 
routine,  and  peculation,  are  now  efiiciency  and  fidelity.  The 
prosperity  of  these  States  is  owing,  in  a  great  degree,  to  the 
character  of  their  civil  service  ^  for  it  has  been  instnimeutal 
to  the  development  of  their  resources  and  to  public  economy. " ' 

These  great  changes — this  moral  regeneration  of  official  life 
in  the  Old  World — have  all  the  more  significance  for  us  be- 
cause they  have  taken  place  during  the  period  within  which, 
by  common  consent,  Ave  have  fallen  away  from  the  higher 
standards  of  our  earlier  politics.  These  reforms  are  not  less 
worthy  our  attention  for  the  reason  that  nowhere  have  they 
been  more  complete  and  more  salutary  than  in  Great  Britain 
(and  in  her  colonies  and  dependencies),  where  laws  and  insti- 
tutions most  analogous  to  our  own  prevail. 

The  spirit  of  improvement  has  at  hist  come  from  abroad 

'  "Democracy  in  America."    By  De  Tocquevillc,  vol.  ii.  p.  378. 
'  Mr.  Andrews,  late  Minister  to  Sweden,  to  Mr.  Fish,  Foreign  Relatiom 
oj  the  United  States,  187G,  p.  553. 


8  CIVIL    SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

upon  our  own  borders.  A  Governor-General  of  Canada  is  able 
to  refer  to  the  prospects  of  tliat  country  in  language  which 
we  can  hardly  read  without  interest,  if  without  self-reproach. 
"It  is  necessary  that  the  civil  service  should  be  given  a 
status  regulated  by  their  acquirements,  their  personal  qualifi- 
cations, their  capacity  for  rendering  the  country  efiicient  ser- 
vice ;  and  that  neither  their  original  appoinjtments  nor  their 
subsequent  advancement  should,  ni  any  way,  have  to  depend 
upon  their  political  coimections  or  opinions.  If  you  will  take 
my  advice,  you  will  never  allow  the  civil  service  to  be  degraded 
into  an  instrument  to  subserve  the  ends  of  any  political  party. 
.  Ilappily  hotli  the  great  jpolitical  lyarties  in  tlds  coun- 
try have  given  in  their  adherence  to  this  principle. 
And  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  anxiet}''  manifested  by  our 
friends  across  the  line  to  purge  their  own  civil  service  of  its 
political  complexion  will  confirm  every  true  Canadian  in  the 
convictions  I  have  sought  to  impress  upon  you."  * 

How  are  we  to  explain  these  contrasts,  and  this  strange 
neglect  of  what  so  gravely  concerns  our  honor  and  our  pros- 
perity ?  Has  it  been  because,  in  our  days  of  inexperience 
and  sparse  population,  we  adopted  the  theory  that  public  ad- 
ministration was  an  inferior  matter,  hardly  worthy  the  thoughts 
of  statesmen,  which  might  be  handed  over  to  the  management 
of  great  parties  ?  Have  we  acted  under  that  delusion  so 
long  that  it  requires  a  greater  effort  than  we  have  made  to  see 
the  subject  in  its  true  relations  ?  Whatever  the  cause,  it  is 
plain  we  have  allowed  abuses  to  grow  almost  without  a  serious 
effort  to  I'eraove  them.  We  have  neither  traced  them  to  their 
causes  nor  comprehended  their  perils.  We  have  endured 
them  with  a  sort  of  fatalistic  resignation  equally''  suggestive  of 
indifference  and  despair.  We  have  been  supinely  fioating  on 
the  partisan  currents  of  our  politics  in  whatever  direction  they 
have  flowed.  The  caprice  of  the  majority  has  been  accepted 
as  the  iTile  of  duty.  That  majority,  until  the  present  de- 
cade, at  least,  has  tended  more  and  more  to  become  despotic.'' 

'  Farewell  speech  of  Lord  Dufferin,  Governor-General  of  Canada,  Novem- 
ber, 1878. 

'"'I  had  remarked  during  my  stay  iu  the  United  States,  that  a  demo- 
cratic state  of  society  might  offer  singular  tacilities  for  the  establishment  of 
despotism."     "  Democracy  in  America,"  vol.  ii.  p.  389. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  9 

Manly  independence  in  politics  has  naturally  decayed.  Ab- 
sorbed by  the  current  questions  of  party  contests,  our  great 
officei'S  and  political  leaders  have,  decade  after  decade,  re- 
mained inactive  in  the  presence  of  injustice  and  corruption  in 
the  daily  affairs  of  administration  such  as  have  not,  for  nearly 
half  a  century,  existed  in  the  government  of  any  other  leading 
nation,  except  Russia.  With  many  politicians,  it  has  come  to 
be  treated  as  unpatriotic  to  suggest  that  our  methods  of  deal- 
ing with  offices  and  parties  can  be  improved.  To  such  an 
extent  has  the  prevalence  of  a  partisan  spoils  system  blinded 
and  perverted  the  public  judgment  that  we  need  to  go  back 
to  the  time  of  "Walpole,  or  at  least  to  the  time  of  George  III.,  i 
to  find  precedents  for  the  scorn  and  arrogance  with  which 
partisan  managers  and  the  dominant  majority,  in  this  country, 
have  insulted  and  defied  the  higher  sentiments  of  the  jieople. 

The  more  sober  and  introspective  mood  which  has  lately 
come  over  the  public  mind  is  highly  favorable  to  a  reform  in 
our  administration,  and  we  may  reasonably  expect  that  the  in- 
fluence of  the  reform  sentiment  will  continue  to  gain  strength. 
But  well  defined  and  consistent  views  and  common  methods 
of  action  on  the  part  of  those  who  support  reform  are  es- 
sential. Such  views  by  no  means  exist.  Some  of  its  friends 
expect  to  see  a  reform  brought  about  by  a  grand  popular 
effort,  which  shall  at  once  drive  all  unworthy  men  from  office 
and  open  a  new  era  in  our  politics.  Others  look  upon  re-i 
form  as  a  work  of  enlightenment  and  purification,  to  be 
gradually  carried  forward,  and  mainly  through  methods  of 
its  own  which,  by  their  salutary  effects,  will  win  the  support 
needed  to  hasten  its  completion.  "While  a  third  class  believe 
that  no  refonn  is  possible  which  is  not  carried  out  through 
party  action  alone,  and  by  the  ordinary  processes  of  partisan 
politics.  We  need  to  decide  which  of  these  theories  is  cor- 
rect. 

Civil  service  reform  in  its  true  scope  includes  not  merely 
practical  methods  in  administration,  under  which  worth  and 
capacity  may  gain  what  is  their  due,  despite  corrupt  and  par- 
tisan influence,  but  it  also  embodies  great  principles  which 
concern  the  duties  of  office  and  the  very  foundations  of  par- 
ties and  government.     An  essential  condition  of  its  support  is 


10  CIVIL   SERVICE  m  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

a  belief  that  oiTr  partisan  activit^is^excessive,  and  that  gi'eat 
parties  would  be  more  salutary  if  they  trusted  more  to  prin- 
ciples and  to  patriotism,  and  less  to  mere  interest,  patronage,  and 
spoils.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  who  beheve 
that  all  such  base  elements  are  essential  to  the  vigor,  if  not 
to  the  existence,  of  great  parties.  Ordinary  human  nature — 
man  as  he  is  and  will  be  in  this  country — they  hold  to  be  in- 
capable of  any  thing  more  patriotic  or  disinterested.  They 
maintain  that  our  jDartisan  system  of  dealing  with  office  and 
administration  is  a  natural  and  original  growth  under  our  in- 
stitutions. They  assert  that  every  attemj)t  to  change  it  is  a 
sort  of  rebellion  against  the  theory  of  the  government  and 
the  conditions  of  its  success.  They  declare  that  the  British 
Government  is  so  different  in  theory  and  structure,  and  that 
the  relations  of  parties  under  it  are  so  diverse  from  party  re- 
lations in  the  United  States,  that  all  reasoning  from  one  to 
the  other  is  unwarranted  and  misleading.  From  these  views, 
it  follows  that  those  who  seek  a  reform  in  our  civil  service — 
and  especially  those  who  hope  to  aid  the  work  by  a  study  of 
British  precedents — are  commending  principles  M^hich  it  is 
dangerous  to  act  upon.  Tliey  are  urging  standards  of  duty 
and  methods  of  action  at  once  chimerical  and  impracticable — 
the  dreams  of  doctrinaires — the  ideals  of  amiable  enthusiasts 
knowing  little  of  politics  or  of  human  nature.  It  is  plain  that 
the  merits  of  these  conflicting  views  cannot  be  tested  without 
an  inquiry  into  the  history  of  civil  corruption  in  Great  Britain 
and  a  consideration  of  the  relations  which  parties  there  hold  to 
government  and  to  society.  It  will  certainly  not  be  an  un- 
profitable inquiry,  if  we  shall  find  that  the  abuses,  (for  which 
our  corrupt  partisans  apologize  by  declaring  them  to  be  origi- 
nal and  inseparable  from  party  government  in  a  republic,) 
were  in  full  vigor  under  despotic  kings  two  centuries  before 
this  continent  was  discovered,  and  four  centuries  before  party 
government  existed.  How  can  we  better  determine  the  com- 
parative relations  of  parties  in  the  two  countries  than  by  show- 
ing their  origin  and  growth  in  Great  Britain,  their  attitude 
toward  the  partisan  spoils  system  which  prevailed  tliere  for 
generations,  and  the  manner  in  which  British  parties  have 
been   compelled  to  accept   a  reform   by  which  that  system 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN".  11 

has  been  exterminated  and  their  own  salutary  vigor  has  been 
strengthened  ? 

"When  "\ve  see  something  like  despair  over  the  evils  produced 
by  Congressmen  interfering  with  the  appointing  power,  will  it 
not  be  useful  to  consider  a  gi-and  procession  of  reform  meas- 
ures, in  which  the  origin,  the  damaging  effects,  and  tiie  re- 
moval of  those  very  evils,  are  but  links  in  the  great  chain  of 
events  ?  At  a  time  when  demagogues  proclaim,  and  faint- 
hearted, good  men  fear  that  it  requires  an  official  virtue  far 
beyond  any  we  should  expect  in  this  world,  to  have  appoint- 
ments made  on  the  basis  of  merit  fairly  disclosed  by  non-par- 
tisan testSj  will  it  not  be  profitable  to  present  the  history  of 
the  accomplishment  of  precisely  that  reform  by  another  gov- 
ernment acting  upon  methods  quite  available  to  us  ? 

In  tracing  the  history '  of  abuses  and  reform.s  in  Great 
Britain,  we  shall  find  ourselves  considering  no  unimportant 
part  of  those  great  influences  which  have  shaped  the  progress 
of  her  civilization.  The  purposes  of  this  volume,  fortunately, 
do  not  require  any  profound  treatment  of  the  subject.  But  I 
am  pereuaded  that  its  adequate  presentation  would  show  that 
important  events,  commonly  represented  as  earned  forward  by 
influences  mucli  more  general  and  external,  have  really  had  their 
foundation  in  the  interests  of  officials  and  the  prostitution  of 
the  public  service.  For  example,  the  attitude  of  Great 
Britain  toward  this  country  during  our  revolutionary  war  can- 
not be  fully  apjjreciated  without  a  better  undei-standing,  than 
is  usually  illustrated  by  historians,  of  the  influence  of  a  des- 
potic and  corrupt  civil  and  military  administration  in  that 
country,  by  which  that  war  was  at  least  aggravated  and  pro- 
longed. It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  extent  to  which  the 
morality  and  the  policy  of  a  great  nation  is  moulded  by  the 
character  and  the  interests  of  those  who  fill  its  offices,  apply 
its  resources,  and  use  its  name  and  authority. 

In  considering  the  methods  by  which  the  most  liberal  and 
commercial  nation  of  the  Old  World  has  elevated  the  charac- 

'  "  To  give  a  full  history  of  civil  service  reform  ia  England  would  require 
a  bulky  volume."  Pamphlet  by  E.  F.  Waters,  1878.  This  iuteresting  pam- 
phlet, which,  unfortunately  for  me,  is  of  verj'  limited  range,  is  the  only  writ- 
ing I  have  been  able  to  find  especially  devoted  to  the  subject. 


11a  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

ter  of  its  official  life,  we  need  not  have  any  purpose  of  mere_ 
imitation.  The  question  for  us,  like  the  question  for  our 
early  statesmen,  is  whether,  from  that  quarter,  we  may  gather 
any  thing  adapted  to  our  needs,  and  in  harmony  with  our  po- 
litical and  social  system.  And  it  is  because  the  subject  is  so 
general  that  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  it  quite  beyond  its 
direct  bearings  upon  public  administration.  How  does  it  stand 
related  to  liberty,  to  equality,  to  popular  education,  to  equal 
rights  and  common  justice  ?  Is  the  spirit  which  has  reformed 
the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain  a  monarchical,  aristocratic 
spirit,  or  is  it  a  republican,  democratic,  and  liberal  spirit  ? 

On  reflection,  it  will  excite  no  surprise  that  British  experience 
is  presented  as  richer,  riper,  and  more  varied,  as  well  as  vastly 
more  extensive,  than  that  of  the  United  States.  It  is  such,  not 
merely  because  England  had  gathered  the  administrative  wis- 
dom of  many  centuries  before  the  American  nation  was  born. 
Eliot  and  Vane,  Chatham  and  Burke,  had  so  lived  and  spoken 
that  the  greatest  reformers  may  even  yet  gather  inspiration  and 
wisdom  from  their  examples.  Statutes  had  been  enacted,  in 
the  interest  of  pure  and  vigorous  administration,  to  the  moral 
level  of  which  none  of  our  own  enactments  have  yet  risen,  and 
without  which  our  courts  could  not  sustain  their  most  salutary 
rulings.  "VVe  niust  also  remember  that  Great  Britain  has  ruled 
over  so  many  millions  of  people,  over  countries  so  diverse  and 
races  so  different,  and  that  she  has  held  such  supremacy  in 
commerce  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  that  every  kind  of 
official  authority  has  been  exercised  upon  a  scale  with  which, 
in  many  particulars,  nothing  analogous  in  our  affairs  is  com- 
parable. To  rule  British  India  alone,  with  its  vast  public 
works,  its  great  army  of  more  than  250,000  men,  its  200,000 
policemen,  its  revenues  of  $250,000,000  a  year,  its  population 
of  more  than  190,000,000,  of  many  races  and  creeds — at  once 
difficult  to  govern  and  dangerous  to  neglect — even  for  a  single 
year — requires  more  officials,  more  responsibility,  more  efficient 
methods  of  administration,  and  I  may  almost  add  more  care 
and  capacity,  than  would  have  sufficed  for  good  administration 
in  all  our  territories  and  Indian  affairs  during  this  generation. 
When  to  India  we  add  the  Australian  colonies — Tasmania  and 
South  Africa,   Canada  and  Jamaica,  Ceylon  and  the  many 


12  WORTH  WASHiN6T0(im 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN.  1 

islands  and  stations  under  the  British  flag  all  round  the  globe 
— there  is  presented  a  variety  of  official  life  and  opportunities 
for  corruption  under  a  bad  system,  such  as  never  before,  in 
ancient  or  modern  times,  taxed  the  administrative  wisdom  of 
a  nation. 

As  we  have  to  deal  with  the  claim  that  some  of  our  princi- 
pal evils  are  inevitable  accompaniments  of  the  blessings  of 
republican  government,  we  shall  need  to  trace  them  to  their 
true  source  in  the  feudal  system.  Therein  we  shall  find  the 
origin  of  the  spoils  system  ;  and  the  partisan  theory  of  official 
irresponsibility  in  the  use  of  the  appointing  power  in  full 
practice.  From  thence,  we  shall  trace  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  the  idea  of  official  responsibility  up  to  and  through  a 
partisan  system  of  appointments  and  removals,  beyond  which 
M'e  have  not  yet  advanced.*  It  is  the  need  of  refuting  the 
false  theories  referred  to  which  makes  a  historical  treatment 
of  the  subject  indispensable.  The  course  of  history  and  the 
results  of  experience  through  centuries  will  be  the  argument 
and  the  refutation.  The  world  takes  notice  that  never  before 
lias  any  nation  ruled  with  such  success  dependencies  so  broad 
or  profited  by  a  commerce  so  extensive  as  now  belong  to 
Great  Britain.  Is  that  success  more  due  to  the  form  of  her 
government  or  to  the  system  of  her  administration  ?  AVe  are 
of  the  same  Anglo-Saxon  race  as  the  British  j^eopie.  We  have 
a  form  of  government  to  which  we  are  devoted,  and  which 
we  do  not  intend  to  abandon.  If  we  are  compelled  to  believe 
that,  under  our  administrative  system,  we  could  not  manage 
the   dependencies   of   Great   Britain — or  even  British   India 

'  Exceptions  must  be  made  of  the  civil  sei-vice  reform  experiment  success- 
fully entered  upon  and  needlessly  abandoned  under  President  Grant  (see 
Appendix  C) ;  and  of  the  reform  policy  and  measures  of  President  Hayes, 
the  admirable  spirit,  and  the  effects  of  ■which — limited  in  range  as  these 
measures  have  thus  far  been — are  full  of  encouragement.  The  administra- 
tion of  the  Department  of  the  Interior  and  of  the  New  York  Post  Office  h:is 
been  made  to  approach  closely  to  the  British  standards ;  and  the  Custom 
House,  at  New  York  City,  is  being  raised  out  of  the  quagmire  of  i)artisjm 
politics.  Political  assessments,  official  interference  witli  the  freedom  of 
elections,  and  the  despotic  sway  of  partisan  manij)ulators,  have  already  re- 
ceived a  considerable  check  from  the  present  administration,  whicii  shows 
how  easily  a  more  comprehensive  and  systematic  reform  may  be  carried 
forward. 


llo  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

alone — for  a  single  decade,  are  we  prepared  to  assign  as  the 
cause  either  the  inherent  weakness  of  our  form  of  government 
or  our  own  incompetency  as  administrators  ?  If  not,  what  is 
tlie  cause  ? 

With  so  much  depending  on  the  fidelity  and  wisdom  of 
officials,  it  is  no  matter  of  surprise  that  administrative  ques- 
tions have  engaged  the  serious  attention  of  British  statesmen. 
Public  administration,  in  Great  Britain,  has,  in  fact,  been  re- 
duced to  something  like  a  science.  It  has  taken  rank  with 
legislation  ;  having  its  fixed  principles,  its  carefully  nurtured 
methods,  its  theory  of  parties,  its  well-considered  tests  of  ca- 
pacity and  character,  its  limits  of  work,  j-ecreation,  age,  and 
responsibility — of  which  the  British  people  take  notice  and 
from  which  high  officers  dare  not  depart.  It  is  all  the  more 
worthy  our  attention,  because  it  is  the  experience  of  a  people 
than  whom  none  are  more  severely  practical  and  utilitarian — 
of  an  empire  whose  institutions  are  most  free  and  analogous  to 
our  own.  It  wull  appear  that,  either  in  the  home  government 
or  in  India,  substantially  all  the  abuses  we  have  endured,  and 
all  the  specious  arguments  by  which  their  continuance  has  been 
excused,  were  familiar  to  English  statesmen  long  before  we 
began  to  talk  about  political  corruption.  Even  our  late  at- 
tempts at  the  limitation  of  these  abuses  are  but  the  reproduc- 
tions of  modes  of  relief  quite  familiar  in  British  experience. 

If  we  believe  that  the  great  care  given  to  public  admin- 
istration, in  the  older  countries,  is  by  reason  of  any  thing 
l^eculiar  to  monarchies,  or  is  a  mere  attempt  to  reconcile  them 
to  the  more  liberal  ideas  of  modern  times,  I  venture  to  think 
that  our  mistake  is  very  great.  It  is  only  a  couTitcrpart  of 
that  we  make  in  su imposing  that  a  real  reform  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice of  a  great  nation  can  be  brought  about  either  in  a  sweep- 
ing and  sudden  way,  or  by  any  partisan  method,  or  without 
a  comprehensive  and  patriotic  policy  steadily  pursued  by  the 
government  and  intelligently  supported  by  the  peojDle.  Wc 
shall,  on  the  contrary,  find  reason  to  believe  that  the  work  of 
administrative  reform,  in  the  older  countries,  has  been  guided 
by  a  sagacious  and  comprehensive  statesmanship,  aiming  at  a 
greater  strength  and  a  larger  commerce — a  statesmanship  by 
no  means  untouched  by  national  pride  and  ambition.     It  has 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  11(1 

aimed  to  increase  the  power  of  the  nation  and  the  patriotism 
of  the  people  by  bringing  snperior  character  and  capacity  into 
official  places  of  every  grade. 

I  am  not  unmindful  that  there  are  people  who  will  be 
ready  to  denounce  as  unpatriotic  any  comparison  unfavorable 
to  ourselves.  But  I  can  feel  no  patriotism  to  be  higher  than 
that  which  arraigns  our  national  vices  only  in  the  hope  of  ar- 
resting them.  "  The  most  important  lessons  a  nation  can 
learn  from  its  own  history  are  to  be  found  in  the  exposure  of 
its  own  errors."^  In  the  religious  and  moral  sentiments, 
broadly  developed  in  the  homes  of  our  people,  and  in  general 
education  more  and  more  cherished  among  them,  we  may 
surely  find  a  basis  as  solid  and  a  potency  as  great  for  high 
national  effort  as  ever  existed  in  the  citizenship  of  any  coun- 
try. But  such  capacity  will  be  of  little  avail  if  a  sort  of 
Turkish  or  Mexican  conceit  that  our  methods  are  perfect,  and 
a  false  patriotism  fatal  to  self-inspection,  shall  keep  us  blind 
to  the  peril  of  a  decline  in  the  moral  tone  of  official  life,  while 
making  us  half  unconscious  of  its  disgrace.  Kor  Vv'ill  our 
virtues  much  more  avail  if  the  voice  of  truth  and  patriotism 
is  to  be  silenced  by  the  domineering  spirit  of  the  political  ma- 
jority and  the  partisan  leaders.  We  need  to  see  ourselves 
distinctly  as  we  appear  in  the  light  of  administrative  wisdom 
reflected  from  the  foremost  nations  of  the  Old  World. 

^  "  A  History  of  our  Own  Times,"  by  McCarthy,  vol.  i.,  chap.  8. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Origin  and  growth  of  the  idea  of  official  responsibility. — Corrupt  use  of 
public  authority  held  no  wrong  long  after  such  use  of  public  money  ad- 
mitted to  be  indefensible. — The  spoils  system  originated  in  the  feudal  sys- 
tem and  is  an  outgrowth  of  despotism. — All  offices  for  sale,  all  officials  venal, 
all  administration  corrupt,  in  feudal  times. — Sale  of  offices  tended  to  make 
them  hereditary  and  prevented  frequent  removals. — Civil  Service  Rules 
in  Magna  Carta. — Our  abuses  shown  to  have  monarchical  precedents. — 
Reform  measures  and  the  "  Good  Parliament. " — Rebellion  against  the 
spoils  system  under  Richard  II.,  in  1378. — Remarkable  Civil  Service 
reform  law  of  that  reign. — A  second  rebellion,  of  the  same  kind,  in  the 
next  century. — Its  results. 

At  whatever  period,  sliort  of  going  back  to  feudal  times, 
we  investigate  British  administration  wuth  tiie  purpose  of  em- 
bracing in  its  later  history  all  that  is  material  to  our  own  con- 
dition, we  find  not  a  little  to  invite  us  still  further  into  the 
past,  unless  we  are  willing  to  overlook  the  old  forms  of  modern 
abuses. 

But  for  that  reason,  it  would  suffice  to  state  its  condition 
when  our  constitution  was  adopted,  and  from  thence  to  trace 
its  progress  to  our  time.  Earlier  than  that  date,  however, 
we  shall  find  that  there  is  much  especially  worthy  our  attention. 

As  we  go  back  over  its  course,  we  are  struck  with  the  evi- 
dence, everywhere  presented,  that  the  progress  made  in  civil 
administration,  though  having  many  iiTCgularities  and  oscilla- 
tions, has  really  been  a  sort  of  evolution  from  a  narrower  to  a 
broader  wisdom,  from  ignorance  to  intelligence,  from  injustice 
to  justice,  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  public  morality,  from  the 
lawlessness  of  official  caprice  to  the  sternness  of  official  respons- 
ibility— in  dealing  not  only  with  official  duties  in  the  strict 
sense,  but  with  public  affairs  altogether  ;  the  ascent,  though 
much  affected  by  the  character  of  the  king,  generally  keeping 
pace  with  the  rising  public  intelligence  and  liberty. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  13 

It  is  not  necessary  to  consider  whether  it  has  more  frequently 
happened  that  government  has  originated  in  democratic 
equahty  and  degenerated  into  despotism,  or  in  despotism  of 
some  sort,  and  been  unproved  up  to  free  institutions.  For  it  is 
f amihar  history,  but  not  less  instructive  to  keep  in  mind,  that  we 
may  readily  go  back  upon  the  course  of  the  British,  or  indeed  of 
any  European  government,  to  that  period  when  power  over 
the  civil  service  (I  should  rather  say  the  king's  service)  was  ar- 
bitrary ;  when  neither  character,  nor  capacity,  nor  economy,  nor 
justice,  nor  duty  or  responsibihty  of  any  sort,  was  recognized 
by  the  ruler,  if  demanded  by  the  subject,  in  connection  with  offi- 
cial appointments  or  removals.  !Not  only  the  appointing  power, 
but  control  in  every  way,  on  the  part  of  the  king  or  chieftain, 
over  his  subordinates,  was  arbitrary,  universal,  and  unchal- 
lenged— the  merest  perquisite  and  appendage  of  paramount 
authority. 

For  a  long  period  after  there  was  regular  government,  it  is 
familiar  knowledge  that  the  three  great  departments — legisla- 
tive, executive,  and  judicial — did  not  exist ;  but  the  king,  or 
the  king  with  his  council,  made  up  of  his  favorites,  was 
supreme  over  the  whole  field  of  government,  and  exercised 
every  kind  of  authority.  Government  of  course  had  none 
of  the  modem  limitations  in  favor  of  rehgion  or  right, 
humanity  or  conscience,  liberty  or  justice.  It  was  a  long 
pieriod,  also,  after  there  were  regular  officers  and  departments, 
in  rudimental  form,  with  duties  quite  analogous  to  those  now 
assigned  them  in  all  the  greatest  states  of  the  world,  before 
there  was  any  evidence  that  rulei's  or  officers,  having  the  power 
of  appointment  or  supervision  for  the  execution  of  the  laws, 
recognized  any  obligation  to  regard  merit,  or  to  consult  the 
interests  or  comfort  of  the  people.  Such  a  sense  of  obligation 
is  of  later  origin  and  of  very  slow  growth.  Long  after  the 
time  when,  to  use  public  money  for  the  private  puqjoses  of  the 
king  or  the  great  officers  of  state  or  of  any  powerful  faction  in 
politics  (for  parties  were  a  later  development)  was  generally  re- 
garded as  a  crime,  and  was  punished  as  such,  there  was  no  ])ubUc 
opinion  and  much  less  any  law  that  condemned  the  use  of 
the  appointing  power,  or  of  any  kind  of  official  influence,  for 
such  reprehensible  purposes.  The  theory  of  the  notorious 
2 


14  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Judge  Barnard/  that,  when  lie  gained  an  office,  he  acquired 
the  right  to  use  its  patronage  and  influence  to  suit  himself 
and  his  friends,  was  the  unchallenged  creed  of  every  king 
and  high  oflicer  (with  the  exception  of  here  and  there  an 
official  far  in  advance  of  liis  age),  from  William  the  ]S^orman 
toWilliam  Prince  of  Orange,  except  we  shall  find  that  Crom- 
well rose  to  about  the  partisan  level  of  General  Jackson  in 
the  use  of  the  apj)ointing  power. 

It  needs  no  reasoning  to  make  it  plain  that  a  long  period 
must  have  elapsed,  after  some  enlightened  spirits  first 
affirmed  the  time  rule  of  official  duty,  before  there  was  any 
public  opinion  in  its  behalf,  that  materially  checked  the  haughty 
pleasure  of  the  kings,  lords,  or  great  officers  of  an  arbitrary 
age. 

The  first  instance  I  have  met  with  of  the  coercive  power  of 
such  a  public  opinion,  was  early  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
when  the  historian  says  "  the  opinion  of  the  nation  was  strongly 
expressed  in  favor  of  reform,  and  the  king  was  compelled  to 
choose  his  subordinate  ministers  with  some  reference  to  their 
capacity  for  business."  * 

In  view  of  the  facts  that,  even  in  these  enlightened  times, 
it  is  thought  a  crime  for  an  officer  to  apply  public  money  for 
the  use  of  himself  or  his  party,  but  is  very  generally  recognized 
as  no  wrong  to  use  his  official  influence  (to  say  nothing  of  his 
time  needed  in  the  public  service,  just  as  selfishly),  for  the 
same  purpose,  we  need  not  express  much  surprise  that  the 
coarse  and  obtuse  morality  of  a  rude  and  uneducated  people 
passed  no  condemnation  upon  bribery  or  upon  the  open  pur 
chase  and  sale  of  office.  They  long  remained  too  blunt  and 
reckless  to  take  any  notice  that  there  is  really  the  same  duty 
to  use  public  authority  that  there  is  to  use  public  property,  only 
for  public  jiurposes.  Such  arbitrary  and  corrupt  ways  of  deal- 
ing with  office,  in  the  ruder  ages   of  British   history,  were 

'  When  Judge  Barnard  was  asked  on  his  trial  to  cxphiin  his  system  of  ap- 
pointment, this  was  his  answer  : 

"  Here,  counsellor,   this    is  my  court ;    I    have  won   this  office  ;    this 
patronage  is  mine." — George  G.  Barnard  Impeachment,  trial,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
1641. 
-  '  Stubbs'  Constitutional  History  of  England,  vol.  i. ,  p.  355. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"   GREAT  BRITAIN.  15 

notliing  exceptional  in  the  affairs  of  government ;  for  tliey 
are  but  an  example  of  the  manner  in  which  all  its  powers  were 
prostituted  ;  to  extort  the  earnings  and  hold  down  in  poverty 
and  ignorance  the  masses  of  the  people  ;  to  fill  the  treasuries, 
to  minister  to  the  vices  and  luxuries,  and  to  fight  the  battles, 
of  kings,  lords,  and  bishops.  The  pleasure,  ambition,  and 
power  of  the  kings,  nobles,  and  great  officers  were  everything  ; 
justice  and  equality,  duty  and  economy,  the  personal  worth  of 
the  citizen,  and  the  effect  of  administration  upon  the  people  at 
large,  were  notliing  with  those  who  controlled  the  nation  ;  ex- 
cept in  the  rare  instances  when  a  long-outraged  people  would, 
in  wrath  and  despair,  follow  a  Jack  Cade  or  a  AYat  Tyler  in 
bloody  assault  upon  their  oppressors. 

The  reigns  of  tlie  Plantagenets  and  the  Tudors  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  palmy  days  of  the  despotic-spoils  system  of  office  ; 
for  everything  in  government  and  society  was  in  the  same  spirit 
— that  crushing  spirit  of  feudal  subordination  and  dependence 
under  which  all  the  public  offices  and  places,  and  nearly  all 
the  land  of  the  kingdom,  not  in  the  hands  of  the  Cro^vn,  the 
nobles,  or  the  Church,  were  held  subject  to  a  solemn  oath  and 
condition  to  king  or  lord  ''  to  be  a  liegeman  for  life  .  .  .  and 
to  keep  loyalty  to  him  .  .  .  for  life  and  death, ' '  Charters 
and  monopolies,  in  a  fit  of  good-nature,  were  tossed  by  a  king 
to  some  borough,  great  officer  or  favorite  that  had  pleased  him  ; 
and,  in  a  fit  of  anger  or  drunkenness,  they  were  as  arbitrarily 
revoked.  When  a  king  could  "confer  two  hundred  manors 
upon  a  brother,"  and  reward  every  great  baron  and  favorite 
with  rich  estates  at  his  will  ;  when  every  successful  warrior 
was  given  not  only  the  spoils  of  his  enemy,  but  lands  and 
houses  arbitrarily  taken  from  citizens  at  home  ;  when  vast 
spaces  could  be  appropriated  to  forests  and  pleasure-grounds 
by  kings  and  dukes  without  consent  if  not  without  compensa- 
tion ;  when  from  amidst  the  armed  followers  who  attended 
their  journeys,  or  from  the  lofty  turrets  of  their  castles  and 
palaces,  so  many  of  which  have  survived  the  spoils  system,  of 
which  they  were  the  citadels,  the  great  lords  and  ecclesiastics 
could  look  do^v^^  in  haughty  defiance  upon  a  half- enslaved 
common  people — then  indeed  there  is  no  ground  for  surprise 
that  offices  and  places,  salaries  and  sinecures,  removals  and 


10  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

promotions,  were  the  mere  perquisites  and  playthings  of  the 
great  and  the  highborn.  But  we  raiay  well  wonder,  not  merely 
that  the  system,  but  that  the  smallest  example  of  it,  should 
have  survived  to  these  times. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  absence  of  any  controlling 
sense  of  duty  to  bestow  office,  either  with  reference  to  the 
merit  of  the  officer  or  the  interests  of  the  people,  tended  to 
make,  and  to  a  large  extent  did  make,  offices  hereditary.  It 
was  natural  that  ministers  and  noblemen,  having  offices  for 
sale,  should  seek  to  enhance  the  market  price  by  strengthening 
all  the  guarantees  of  permanence  in  tenure.  There,  Joeing 
no  standard  of  right,  except  power  and  influence,  for  holding 
an  office,  those  in  offices  naturally  and  openly  used  their 
authority  to  extend  and  transmit  their  tenure.  A  statute, 
enacted  in  1452,  declares  that  no  officer  of  the  customs  shall 
have  any  "  estate  certain  in  his  office  ;"  but,  significantly 
enough,  it  furtlier  provides  that  this  prohibition  shall  not 
' '  prejudice  our  sovereign  lady  the  Queen,  the  Prince,  or  the 
Duke  of  Buckingliam, "  or  several  others  named,  who  of 
course  might  continue  to  demand  and  receive  tlie  full  market 
l^rice  for  offices  and  places  sold  in  perpetuity.  Hence  sprung 
the  spirit  which  supported  a  hereditary  crown  and  nobility,  as 
well  as  some  other  hereditary  offices  wliich  still  survive,  and 
many  that  do  not.  In  these  facts,  we  may  find  the  reason 
why  frequent  removals  from  office,  even  in  the  worst  times, 
were  not  so  serious  abuses  in  England  as  tliey  liave  been  with 
us.  By  its  very  magnitude,  one  great  e\al  put  some  limits  to 
another. 

The  offices  or  dignities  tliat  early  became  hereditary  and 
long  continued  so  were  very  numerous.  !Nor  was  tliis  all ;  for 
the  right  to  appoint  to  office  and  to  sell  the  apj)ointment  openly 
for  money  became  also  and  long  remained  hereditary  ;  some- 
times in  great  families  and  sometimes  in  the  holder  for  the 
time  being  of  the  offices  themselves. 

Mr.  Stubbs  '  speaks  of  liereditary  offices  being  niimerous  in 
the  thirteenth  century.  I  believe  some  of  these  dignitaries 
(besides  the  king  and  nobility),  which  I  think  we  should  call 
officers,  are  yet  hereditary. 

*  Constitutional  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  355. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRrrAIN.  "   17 

In  1552,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  YI.,*  a  law  was  enacted  pro- 
hibiting the  sale  of  offices,  but  it  contained  this  curious  ex- 
ception, that  it  shall  not  apply  to  the  Justices  of  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  or  Common  Pleas,  or  to  the  Justices  of  the 
Assize  ;  and  therefore  those  officials  were  expressly  left  at 
Hberty  to  exercise  freely  the  hereditary  right  of  making  sale, 
for  their  own  profit,  of  offices  and  places  in  their  own  courts. 
And  the  act  further  declares  that  the  "  prohibition  shall  not 
extend  to  any  sale  or  bargain,  gift,  promise,  nomination,  bond, 
or  covenant  for  office' '  to  be  made  before  March  then  next  ; 
a  proviso  equally  remarkable  as  illustrating  a  well  developed 
machinery  for  contracting  for  offices  and  nominations  to  be 
made  binding  by  ''bonds  and  covenants,"  and  as  suggesting 
that  not  a  few  votes  were  probably  secured  for  the  act  by 
leaving  a  free  market  for  official  corruption  during  nine 
months  after  its  passage  !  And  the  illustration  will  be  the 
more  adequate  if  I  add  that,  so  late  as  1825,"  an  act  was  passed 
for  the  purchase  by  the  government,  from  the  hereditary 
owner,  of  two  public  offices,  one  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench, 
and  the  other  in  the  Common  Pleas,  and  under  this  law  an 
appraisement  of  the  money  value  of  each  office  was  actually 
made,  and  the  government  paid  the  value  fixed,  and  became 
again  the  owner  and  possessor  of  its  own  functions  which  had 
been  merchandise  in  the  market  for  centuries. 

These  are  but  specimens  of  very  many  instances  of  the 
purchase  of  civil  offices  ;  to  say  nothing  here  of  the  scandalous 
and  open  purchase  of  offices  or  places  in  the  army,  and  in  the 
State  Church,  a  practice  only  arrested  in  the  anny  in  1871, 
but  which  continues  in  the  State  Church  to  the  present  time, 
as  I  shall  more  fully  explain. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  even  to  take  a  glance  back  of  the 
it^orman  Conquest  ;  and  from  that  date  to  Cromwell  the  atti- 
tude of  the  government  toward  pubHc  offices  and  places  was 
much  the  same.  If  not  bestowed  in  the  mere  wantonness  of 
irresponsible  and  unlimited  power,  for  the  gratification  of 
pride,  ambition,  and  passion,  or  sold  for  money,  they  were 
used  to  strengthen  the  power  of  the  Crown,  the  nobles,  the 

'  6  Edward  VI.,  chap.  15.  •  6  George  IV.,  chap.  89. 


18  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Church,  or  the  court  favorites,  who  held  them  as  perquisites 
or  spoils.  ISTot  offices  and  places  merely,  but  salaries  without 
labor  or  responsibility  ;  charters,  grants,  and  monopolies  ; 
sentences,  pardons,  exemption  from  taxation,  and  from 
services  by  land  and  sea — were  each  and  all  given,  sold,  with- 
held, or  exchanged,  in  the  same  venal  and  arbitrary  spirit,  and 
with  like  impunity. '  The  commonjpeqple  were  substantially 
unrepresented  when  this  old  spoils  system  was  matured,  and  a 
great  proportion  of  them  were  in  a  condition  of  ignorance  and 
dependence  little  above  slavery  ;  and  power  was  so  concen- 
trated in  a  ruling  class  that  public  opinion,  even  had  it  been 
far  more  enlightened,  could  have  put  only  slight  check  upon 
the  arbitrary  use  of  official  authority. 

I  give  a  few  examples,  by  way  of  illustrating  the  original 
spoils  system  as  it  was  applied  in  practice  in  the  twelfth,  thir- 
teenth, and  fourteenth  centuries. 

"  Among  the  great  officers  of  the  Household  wliicli  appear  from  the 
pipe-roll  to  have  been  saleable  are  those  of  Dapifer,  Marshal  and  Chan- 
cellor. The  last  mentioned  officer,  in  a.d.  1130,  owes  £3006  13s.  4d. 
for  the  great  seal.  The  office  of  Treasurer  was  bought  by  Bishop 
Nigel  for  his  son,  for  £400.  ...  In  Norfolk,  Benjamin  pays 
£4  5s.  to  be  allowed  to  keep  the  pleas  of  the  crown.  .  .  .  John 
Marshall  pays  forty  marks  for  a  mastership  in  the  King's  Court. 
Richard  Fitz  Alured  pays  fifteen  marks  that  he  may  sit  with 
Ralph  Bassctt  on  the  King's  pleas  in  Buckinghamshire.  At  the 
same  time  the  officers  of  the  ancient  courts  are  found  purchasing  relief 
from  their  responsibilities  .  .  .  anxious,  no  doubt,  to  avoid 
heavy  fine     .     .     .     for  neglect  of  duty. " 

These  examples  of  that  refinement  of  royal  and  official  infa- 
my, under  which  not  only  was  the  highest  of  human  function 

'For  example  :  "  In  1245,  Henry  III.  ordered  all  shops  in  London  to  be 
closed  for  fifteen  days  for  the  benefit  of  fairs  proclaimed  by  him  at  West- 
minster. Henry  the  VI.  having  bought  some  alum  for  £4000,  sold  it  for 
£8000,  granting  in  the  sale  an  exclusive  privilege  of  dealing  in  alum  for  a 
term  of  years.  Henry  the  VI.  conferred  upon  a  Tuscan  merchant  the  priv- 
ilege of  importing  a  quantity  of  merchandise  and  prohibited  its  importation 
by  any  one  else  until  he  had  sold  it  off.  America  was  only  suffered  to  be 
[  colonized  under  the  permission  of  trading  monopolists. — Princeton  Beview, 
March,  1878. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN".  19 

— ^that  of  administering  justice — thus  openly  sold  for  money, 
but  by  which  also  anotlier  price  was  taken  in  advance  for 
impurity  in  the  merciless  and  corrupt  abuse  of  this  purchased 
authority,  lend  a  deeper  significance  to  that  celebrated  clause 
of  the  great  charter,  extorted  from  King  John,  which  declares 
that  "  no  man  shall  be  taken,  or  imprisoned,  or  outlawed,  or 
exiled,  or  anywise  destroyed  ;  nor  will  we  go  upon  him,  nor 
send  upon  liim,  but  by  the  lawful  judgment  of  his  peers  or  by 
the  law  of  the  land.  To  none  will  we  sell,  to  none  will  we 
deny  or  delay  right  or  justice. ' '  To  this  charter,  some  of  the 
great  principles  of  our  constitutions  are  to  be  traced. 

If  in  some  appropriate  form  we  liad  incorporated  into  them 
the  j)rinciple  of  the  forty-fifth  article,  which  makes  the  King 
promise  that  "  we  will  not  make  any  justices,  constables, 
sheriffs,  or  bailiffs,  but  of  such  as  knoio  the  law  of  the  Tealm 
and  mean  to  truly  observe  it,"  is  there  any  reason  to  doubt 
that  primary  justice  in  this  country  would  have  been  far  better 
administered  ?  Tliis  clause  of  Magna  Carta  may  be  justly  said 
to  be  the  First  Civil  Service  Rule — the  first  authoritative  pro- 
vision for  securing  due  qualifications  for  an  office — to  be  found 
in  English  history  ;  and  I  have  not  noticed  that  the  constitution 
of  any  State  of  the  Union  has  yet  come  up  to  its  spirit.  The 
majority  is  hardly  yet  convinced  that  a  justice  needs  to  know 
the  law  provided  he  is  only  zealous  for  the  party.  As  a  con- 
sequence there  are  thousands  of  justices  in  this  country  as 
ignorant  of  law  as  they  are  efficient  in  politics,  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  the  victims  of  their  ignorance  and  their  prejudices 
help  to  swell  the  volume  of  public  discouragement  and  discon- 
tent by  reason  of  our  bad  administration.  It  cannot  be  matter 
of  surprise  that,  in  an  age  when  the  conception  of  such  princi- 
ples was  possible  only  during  the  uprising  of  a  high  national 
sentiment,  they  were  neglected  and  scorned  as  soon  as  those  in 
rebelHon  had  laid  aside  their  arms.  The  old  abuses  were 
renewed.  "  So  intimate  is  the  connection  of  judicature  with 
finance  under  the  Xonnan  kings,  that  we  scarcely  need  the 
comments  of  the  historian  to  guide  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
was  mainly  for  the  sake  of  the  profit  that  justice  was  adminis- 
tered at  all.  .  .  .  The  Treasurer,  the  Chancellor,  the 
Justiciar,  pays  a  sum  of  money  for  his  office,  or  even  renders 


20  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

an  annual  rent.  This  practice  runs  on  to  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, when  so  many  of  the  dignities  became  hereditary." 
"  A  great  court  and  council  was  held  at  N"Gttingham,  attended 
by  .  .  .  archbishops,  bishops,  and  earls.  On  the  first 
day  the  King  removed  the  Slieriffs  of  Lincolnshire  and  York- 
shire and  put  up  the  offices  for  sale.  Yorkshire  fell  to  Arch- 
bishop Geoffrey,  whose  bid  of  an  immediate  payment  of  3000 
marks  and  100  marks  of  increment  was  accepted  in  preference 
to  the  lower  bid  of  the  Chancellor,  who  proposed  1500  marks 
for  Yorkshire,  etc.  .  .  .  The  sheriffs,  as  we  learn  from 
the  rolls,  were  nearly  all  displaced."  "He  (the  King)  brought 
together  a  great  council  at  Pipewell,  .  .  .  where  he  gave 
away  the  vacant  bishoprics,  appointed  a  new  ministry,  and 
raised  a  large  sum  of  money  hy  the  sale  of  charters  of  con- 
firmation.'''' "  The  Bishop  of  Durham  had  paid  heavily  for 
his  honors  ;  he  had  bought  the  justiciarship  and  the  earldom 
of  Northumberland."  "Beneath  a  thin  veil  of  names  and 
fictions,  the  great  ministerial  officers,  and  the  royal  interfer- 
ence hy  writ  in  jpri/oate  qua/prels,  were  alike  matters  of  pur- 
chase. ' ' ' 

A  statute  *  of  this  period  so  forcibly  illustrates  its  sjDirit  and 
is  so  ingenious  a  contrivance  for  giving  impunity  to  all  kinds 
of  official  corrujDtion  and  tyranny,  that  I  cannot  forbear  quoting 
from  it. 

* '  Whereas  it  is  contained  in  the  statute  of  the  second  year  of  our 
lord  the  King  that  none  be  so  hardy  to  invent,  say,  or  tell  any  false 
news,  lies,  or  such  other  false  things,  of  the  prelates,  Dukes,  Earls, 
Barons,  and  other  nobles  and  great  men  of  the  realm  ;  and  also  of 
the  Chancellor,  Clerk  of  the  Privy  Seal,  Steward  of  the  King's  House, 
Justice  of  the  one  bench  or  of  the  other,  and  other  great  officers  of  the 
realm  ;  and  he  that  doth  shall  be  taken  and  imprisoned  until  he  hath 
found  him  of  whom  the  speech  shall  be  moved. ' ' 

The  magistrates  were  the  mere  dependents  of  the  higher 
officers.  Official  records  and  doings  were  official  secrets, 
No  man  could  j)rove  a  cliarge  from  that  quarter.  It  was  only 
needed  to  treat  what  was  disagreeable  as  being  ' '  false, ' '  to 

'  See  Stubbs'  Const.  History,  vol.  i.,  pp.  317-503,  496,  497,  384,  387,  and  355. 
»  2  Richard  II.,  chap.  11. 


CrVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITALN".  21 

make  this  law  a  terror  to  every  man  wlio  thought  to  expose 
corruption.  In  condemning  this  device  of  tji'anny,  let  us  not 
.forget  how  generally  a  rule  prevails  with  us,  within  the  public 
service,  as  demoralizing  as  this  statute  was  without  the  service. 
So  long  as  our  subordinate  officers  can  be  dismissed  without 
cause  and  without  explanation,  they  are  no  more  likely,  than 
was  a  subject  of  Hichard  II. ,  to  expose  official  delinquency  in 
high  quarters.  Year  after  year  it  may  continue  with  no  ex- 
posure from  subordinates  who  are  silenced  by  the  fear  of  an 
arbitrary  dismissal. 

While  considering  the  condition  of  civil  administration  at 
that  interesting  period  when  the  English  people,  as  the  first 
instance  in  modem  history,  arose  in  their  might  to  arrest  its 
abuses,  I  wish  to  present  some  further  facts  which  show  the 
identity  of  such  abuses  in  ages  and  under  forms  of  govern- 
ment remotely  separated.  It  is  generally  believed  that  such 
frauds  as  often  come  to  light  in  our  large  cities  in  connection 
with  the  offices  of  coroners,  sheriffs,  justices,  marehals,  and 
clerks  of  courts,  are  original  with  us,  and  that  they  are  the 
inevitable  evils  or  drawbacks  of  universal  suffrage  and  free 
institutions  ;  and  this  belief  unquestionably  discourages  efforts 
for  their  prevention.  I*fothing  can  be  more  unwarranted  than 
such  opinions.  A  statute  enacted  more  than  six  centuries 
ago,'  having  recited  "that  forasmuch  as  mean  persons,  and 
indiscreet,  now  of  late  are  commonly  chosen  to  the  office  of 
coroners,  when  it  is  requisite  that  honest  persons  should 
occupy  such  offices,"  proceeds  to  enact  "  that  no  coroner  shall 
demand  or  take  anything  to  do  his  office,  upon  pain  of  great 
forfeiture  to  the  king."  Another  clause  of  the  same  law 
enacts  "  that  no  sheriff  or  other  King's  officer  shall  take  any 
reward  to  do  his  office,  .  .  .  and  if  he  do  he  shall  be 
punished  at  the  King's  pleasure;"  and  still  another  provides, 
in  substance,  that  no  clerk  shall  take  anything  but  his  fees  for 
doing  his  duty,  and  if  he  does  he  shall  pay  twice  as  much  as 
he  has  taken  and  also  lose  his  place  for  a  year  ;  and  still 
another  forbids  any  "  marshall,  or  cryer,  or  other  officer  of 
justice,"  taking  money  wrongfully,  and  declares  "  that  there 

'  In  1375,  3  Edward  I.,  chap.  10. 


22  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

is  a  greater  number  of  tliem  tlian  there  ought  to  he,  whereby 
the  people  are  sore  aggrieved, ' '  and  forbids  such  abuses  in  the 
future,  which  are  to  be  followed  by  a  forfeiture  of  the  office 
and  "  grievous  punishment  at  the  King's  pleasure. " 

In  recognizing  these  familiar  offences  of  our  day,  flourishing 
under  a  royal  and  feudal  government,  it  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  the  punislmient  denounced — especially  the  forfeiture  of 
office — is  more  di'astic  and  effective  in  its  nature  than  we  have 
generally  provided.  The  twenty-ninth  chapter  of  the  same 
law  reaches  another  abuse  not  less  famihar  to  us.  It  provides 
that  "if  any  pleader  ...  or  other  do  any  mamier  of 
deceit  or  collusion  in  the  King's  Court,  or  beguile  the  court  or 
the  party,  ...  he  shall  be  imprisoned  for  a  year  and  a 
day  ;  and  if  the  trespass  require  greater  punislunent,  it  shall 
be  at  the  King's  pleasure.'' 

In  1344,  a  statute  prohibits  justices  from  taking  gifts  or 
rewards  ;  but  a  later  statute '  breathes  a  less  stern  morality, 
for  it  makes  this  exception,  "  unless  it  be  meat  or  drink,  and 
that  of  small  value."  ^ 

The  practice  of  extorting  extra  fees  or  arbitrary  i>ayment8  on 
the  part  of  officers  of  the  treasury,  is  not  an  abuse  of  repubhcan 
origin,  but  was  well  developed  under  royalty  before  this  con- 
tinent was  discovered.  A  statute  of  1455 '  recites  that 
"  whereas  officers  in  the  King's  Exchequer  do  take  fees,  .  " 
and  also  do  take  gifts  and  rewards  for  the  execution  of  their 
offices  ...  by  extortion,  .  .  . "  and  then  denounces 
penalties.  So  also  the  vexatious  wrongs  practiced  by  baggage 
searchers  and  other  officers  of  customs  are  not  original  here, 
but  were  well  developed  in  the  old  country  f oui*  centuries  ago. 
In   a   statute   of  about  the  same  date  as  that  last   referred 

J 12  Edward  III. 

"  This  easy  kind  of  morality  seems  indigenous  in  despotic  states.  Speak- 
ing of  Russian  administration,  a  late  author  says  :  "  The  officials,  quite  puz- 
zled by  the  severe  punishments  as  to  how  to  mask  their  corrupt  cupidity,  at 
last  invented  a  curious  trick.  They  placed  in  their  houses  a  great  number 
of  religious  pictures.  Those  who  desired  to  win  the  ear  of  the  judge,  or  of 
any  other  official,  suspended  their  presents  as  a  sort  of  religious  homage  I 
An  ukase  was  thereupon  published,  that  only  seven  or  eight  roubles'  worth 
could  be  suspended  to  the  pictures. 

^  Henry  VI. ,  chap.  3. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  23 

to,'  it  is  recited  tliat  "  whereas  divers  water-bailiffs,  searchers, 
comptrollers  of  the  search,  and  others,  their  deputies  and 
servants,  within  the  ports  of  this  realm,  .  .  .  do,  by  color 
of  their  office,  wrongfully  take,  by  constraint  ...  of 
goods  and  merchandise,  .  .  .  and  cause  great  charges 
and  impositions,  .  .  .  and  by  such  wrongful  impositions, 
they  do  discourage  said  merchants  and  do  great  damage, 
contrary  to  law  and  conscience  .  .  . "  ;  and  the  act  then 
goes  on  to  provide  a  remedy.  This  law  is  well  adapted  to 
arrest  the  old  abuses  in  the  N^ew  York  Custom  House,  which 
so  many  think  are  quite  original  in  that  office. 

"  As  early  as  1377  we  find  interference  with  the  freedom  of 
elections  of  members  of  Parliament  by  the  executive  officers 
made  a  ground  of  serious  complaint  by  the  people."  '  Even 
the  great  offence  of  false  counts,  certificates  and  returns 
of  votes  by  inspectors  of  election  and  returning  officers  (gen- 
erally deemed  to  be  emphatically  republican  offences,  if  not 
incurable),  were  fully  developed  and  ingeniously  dealt  with  in 
England  near  two  centuries  before  even  a  town  meeting  had 
been  held  on  this  continent.  A  law  of  Henry  VI.  contains  an 
elaborate  provision  on  that  subject.  It  recites  that  "  sheriffs 
for  lucre"  have  not  made  due  "  elections  of  kniglits"  (members 
of  Parliament),  and  ' '  no  return  of  knights  lawfully  chosen, ' ' 
but  ' '  knights  .  .  .  haver  been  returned  which  were 
never  duly  chosen  ;  and  sometimes  the  sheriffs  have  not  re- 
tm*ned  the  writs  which  they  had  to  make  elections  ;  but  the 
said  writs  have  been  embezzled  ;  and  made  no  precept." 

The  congeries  of  frauds  of  omission  and  commission,  referred 
to  in  this  statute,  would  seem  to  indicate  a  royal  original  for 
all  the  devices  of  rascality,  for  which  the  politicians  of  Lou- 
isiana and  Florida  are  thought  to  have  shown  unrivalled  powere 
of  invention. 

''  Under  an  absolute  king,  whose  will  is  law,  that  which  he 
chooses  to  sell  passes  for  justice  ;"  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  long  practice  of  making  merchandise  of  ])ublic 
authority  had  vitiated  and  benumbed  the  moral  sense  of  the 
English   nation   on  the  subject,  so  that  reform  had  become 

'Henrj^VI.,  chap.  5. 

'  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  p.  250. 


24  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

tenfold  more  difficult ;  just  as  the  moral  sense  of  this  nation 
has,  from  like  causes,  become  blunted  to  the  immorality  of 
levying  assessments  and  bestowing  office  for  mere  partisan  pur- 
poses. It  was  not,  it  is  well  to  repeat,  mere  offices  and  places 
tliat  were  bought  and  sold— that  great  officers  in  Church  and 
State  haughtily  treated  as  tlieir  perquisites,  which  they  might 
hand  over  to  the  highest  bidder  or  give  to  please  a  favorite  or 
conciliate  an  enemy — but  every  possible  exercise  of  official 
authority,  by  every  grade  of  officials,  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest,  was  in  the  market  as  merchandise,  at  the  time  when 
Civil  Service  Keform  may  be  said  to  have  commenced  in  Eng- 
land. It  was  not  merely  such  universal  and  long-continued 
precedents  of  venality  that  were  to  be  encountered  by  any 
reform,  but  there  was  also  a  false  and  pernicious  public  opinion, 
developed  through  centuries,  to  the  effect  that  such  abuses  were 
inevitable  ;  because  neither  in  England  nor  in  any  part  of  the 
world  were  there  any  examjDles  to  the  contrary.  In  France, 
for  example,  ' '  the  purchase  of  office  was  legalized.  A  bureau 
was  opened  for  their  sale.  .  .  .  The  kings  of  France, 
in  order  to  raise  money,  made  the  judicial  offices  in  Parlia- 
ment saleable."  '  In  every  European  country,  in  a  certain 
stage  of  its  civilization,  offices  have  been  bought  and  sold. 
And  besides  all  this  ground  of  discouragement,  there  was 
the  great  fact  that  those  who  sanctioned  and  practised  such 
corruption,  and  who  gained  money,  authority,  and  influence 
thereby,  were  the  ruling,  the  high-born,  the  educated  classes 
— the  royal  family  and  the  nobles — the  bishops  and  the  priests — 
the  ministers  and  the  generals — great  lawyers  who  had  become 
judges — all  persons  in  places  of  authority  or  social  influence. 

Then,  as  now  and  ever,  from  its  very  nature,  the  cause  of 
administrative  reform  was  the  cause  of  the  common  people — 
the  cause  of  justice  and  equal  rights  among  them,  the  cause  of 
personal  merit  against  every  one  having  special  privileges  and 
perquisites — against  the  whole  official  or  partisan  body.  But  the 
great  body  of  the  people  were  utterly  ignorant  and  were  hardly 
represented  at  all.  The  public  press,  and  other  gi'eat  modern 
agencies  for  awakening  and  combining  a  pubhc  jjrotest,  did 

'  Young's  Sketches  of  the  French  Bar. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  25 

not  exist.  Freedom  of  speech  did  not  exist ;  the  right  of 
petition  was  not  recognized.  In  such  a  time,  it  might  well 
have  been  said  that  a  reform  of  such  abuses  seemed  impossible. 
To  attack  them  was,  indeed,  hardly  less  than  a  rebellion  ;  and 
the  question  raised  by  a  reformer  was  a  constitutional  question 
of  disturbing  the  balance  of  power  in  the  state,  by  an  elevation 
of  the  masses. 

' '  The  nobility,  and  the  knights  and  members  of  knightly  families, 
made  up  a  warrior  caste,  who  termed  themselves  gentle  by  biith,  and 
who  looked  down  upon  the  great  mass  of  the  lay  community  as  be- 
ings of  almost  inferior  nature.  .  .  .  The  peasantry  and  the 
little  allodialists  were  ground  down  with  servitude  and  forced  to  till 
the  soil  as  abject  dependents  of  the  barons. ' '  ' 

In  those  times  the  spoils  system  was  neither  an  anachronism 
nor  an  importation,  but  a  congenial  growth  in  keeping  with 
general  despotism,  injustice,  and  violence.  To  assail  that 
system  required  not  simply  the  little  courage  which  suffices  to 
dissent  from  one's  party  platform,  or  the  small  patriotism  need- 
ed to  forbear  a  nomination  to  a  little  office,  but  the  forecast  of 
a  statesman  in  advance  of  his  times,  the  courage  of  a  patriot 
ready  to  defy  a  domineering  class  and  a  merciless  king,  or  per- 
haps the  resignation  of  a  martyr  ready  to  go  to  prison  if  not 
to  the  block.  It  is  plain  that  to  interfere  with  such  a  sys- 
tem was  nothing  less  than  an  assault  upon  the  power  of  the 
king.  But  in  those  times  the  king  luled,  in  popular  estima- 
tion, by  the  favor  of  Heaven.  His  government  was  a  divine 
institution. 

This  added  vastly  to  the  awe  it  inspired  and  the  power  it 
wielded.  In  the  language  of  Mr.  Lecky,  ' '  It  placed  the  sove- 
reign entirely  apart  from  the  category  of  mere  human  institu- 
tions ;"  and  (I  may  add)  it  therefore  made  a  civil  service 
reformer  a  rebel  against  Divine  Providence  as  well  as  a  traitor 
against  the  king.  He  is  with  us  only  a  visionary  and  an  enemy 
of  the  party.  This  divine  attribute,  in  those  old  times,  was 
thought  to  extend  to  the  physical  person  of  the  king,  and  to  give 
him  power  over  the  ills  of  men — a  power  the  exercise  of  which 

'  Creasy's  History  English  Couetitution,  p.  82. 


26  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

was  for  centuries  used,  with  great  political  effect,  in  tlie  cure  of 
diseases  ;  every  instance  of  which  was  accepted  as  a  fresh  proof 
of  the  king's  right  to  rule  and  of  the  smile  of  Heaven  upon 
him.  This  perverse  veneration — even  surviving  the  craelty  of 
Mary  and  the  treacliery  of  Charles  I.  and  James  I. — was  ex- 
tended to  the  contemptible  voluptuary  who  succeeded  Crom- 
well. In  a  single  year  Charles  II.  touched  for  the  king's  evil 
8500  times,  and  nearly  100,000  persons  fell  on  their  knees 
before  him  for  that  healing  touch  during  his  reign.  Xor  was 
it  the  humble  and  ignorant  alone  who  were  deluded  ;  for  in 
1687  the  King  touched  more  than  700  sick  in  the  centre  of 
learned  society  at  Oxford. 

The  delusion  did  not  end  with  the  seventeenth  century.  A 
solemn  service  for  touching  by  the  Queen  was  printed  in  the 
Common  Prayer-book  of  the  State  Church  during  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne.  Her  Privy  Council  issued  a  proclamation  stating 
where  the  Queen  would  perform  the  miracle.  Dean  Swift 
made  an  apj)hcation  to  her  in  1711  to  cure  a  sick  boy.  In  a 
single  day,  in  1712,  two  hundred  persons  were  touched  by  her, 
and  among  them  was  the  celebrated  Samuel  Johnston,  then  a 
scrofulous  child.  Even  so  late  as  1838,  a  minister  of  the  Shet- 
land Islands  asserts  that  no  cure  for  scrofulous  diseases  was  at 
that  time  there  believed  to  be  so  efficacious  as  the  royal  touch. 
Nor  could  the  democratic  spirit  of  this  land  at  once  dissipate 
the  madness.  Mr.  Lecky  says  that  "  a  petition  has  been 
preserved  in  the  records  of  the  town  of  Portsmouth  in  New 
Hampshire,  asking  the  assembly  of  that  province  in  1687  to 
grant  assistance  to  one  of  the  inhabitants  who  desired  to  make 
the  journey  to  England  in  order  to  obtain  the  benefit  of  the 
royal  touch. ' '  How  brave  and  audacious  must  a  reformer  be 
to  challenge  any  use  of  a  prerogative  in  the  hands  of  mortals 
thus  favored  by  the  powers  above. 

Heturning  again  to  the  progress  of  the  spoils  system,  we  find 
two  great  popular  uprisings  against  it  during  the  arbitrary 
times  we  have  been  considering  ;  the  one  in  the  fourteenth 
and  the  other  in  the  fifteenth  century  ;  the  first  three  hundred 
years  before  party  government  or  even  great  parties  existed  in 
England.  These  uprisings  were  really  the  first  distinct 
attempts  to  bring  about  civil  service  reform  in  England,  though 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  27 

the  rebellion  under  King  John  had  in  part  the  same  end  in 
view.  And  perhaps  the  violence  and  blood  these  rebellious 
reforms  involved  were  the  unavoidable  means  of  gaining  a 
hearing  for  civil  abuses  in  those  feudal  ages. 

It  certainly  cannot  be  said  that,  in  the  rebellion  of  1377,  in 
which  Wat  Tyler  was  the  military  leader,  he  had  the  spirit  or 
acted  the  part  of  a  civil  service  reformer.  lie  only  appeared 
when  the  popular  protest  had  passed  the  limits  of  law  and 
order.  But  it  is  as  certain  that,  in  that  rebellion,  the  people  of 
England,  for  the  first  time,  made  the  abuses  of  their  civil 
administmtion  a  great  national  issue  and  battle  cry  for  reform, 
as  it  is  that  the  same  issue  became  national  with  us,  for  the 
first  time,  in  the  last  Presidential  election.  !N^or  Avas  Jack 
Cade  any  more  such  a  reformer  in  his  own  person,  in  the 
rebellion  of  the  next  century,  in  which  he  was  the  military 
chieftain  ;  but  the  continuance  of  the  spoils  system,  only  a 
little  curtailed,  and  still  leading  to  outrageous  corruption  and 
oppression,  was  one  of  the  greatest  causes,  if  not  the  main 
cause,  which  drove  the  people  a  second  time  to  revolt.  It  is 
worthy  of  notice  that  these  two  rebellions  of  our  ancestors  are 
the  only  instances  of  their  taking  up  arms  on  their  own  account 
in  the  whole  period  from  the  Norman  Conquest  to  Charles  I. 

There  are  facts  connected  with  the  earlier  rebellion  which  "J 
have  a  practical  bearing  upon  civil  service  Reform,  even  in  / 
this  enlightened  age. 

The  open  sale  and  prostitution  of  official  power  in  manifold 
forms  ;  the  granting  of  monopolies  ;  the  extortion  of  money  for 
the  forbearance  of  injustice  ;  the  exaction  of  illegal  fees  ;  the 
invasion  of  private  right  by  official  favorites,  male  and  female  ; 
gross  injustice  in  the  courts  ;  oppressive  taxes  to  maintain  a 
great  army  of  sinecurists  and  supernumeraries  in  offices  and 
public  places  ;  domineering  and  insulting  conduct  on  the  part 
of  high  officials — all  these  abuses,  to  which  I  have  referred  as 
existing  at  an  earlier  date,  had  continued  to  grow  and  poison 
and  exasperate  until  they  led  to  the  outbreak  early  in  the  reign 
of  Eichard  II.,  in  1377.  The  very  vices  and  luxuries  which 
such  debasement  of  official  power  fostered,  indirectly  con- 
tributed to  raising  the  condition  of  those  most  oppressed.  This 
result  was  brought  about  by  a  process  which  in  itself  is  one 


28  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

of  the  best  illustrations  that  can  be  given  of  the  degradation  of 
all  official  and  social  influence.  "  The  luxury  of  the  time 
and  the  pomp  of  chivalry  .  .  .  drained  the  purses  of 
knights  and  barons,  and  the  sale  of  freedom  to  the  serf  . 
afforded  an  easy  and  tempting  mode  of  filling  them.  In  this 
process  Edward  III.  himself  led  the  way.  Commissioners 
w^ere  sent  to  the  royal  estates  for  the  special  purpose  of  manu- 
missions. ' ' '  The  very  lowest  placeman  at  an  office  door,  as 
well  as  the  highest  near  the  King,  were  equally  venal  and 
unscrupulous.  Even  the  King,  "with  a  jest  took  a  bribe" 
for  the  exercise  of   the  pardoning  power.* 

In  the  mean  time  the  people  had  become  bolder,  as  they  had 
gained  in  liberty  and  in  the  knowledge  o  f  the  cause  of  their 
grievances.  It  was  the  generation  of  Wyckliffe,  and  great 
ideas  were  beginning  to  stir  the  heart  of  England.  In  the 
domain  of  politics,  as  of  religion,  we  find  at  this  era  the  be- 
ginnings of  those  brave  and  true  utterances  which,  in  later 
generations,  shook  the  Church  and  the  State  to  their  founda- 
tions. They  are  the  first  predecessors  of  the  pamphlets  of 
Milton  and  of  Burke. 

Foreign  wars,  made  more  disastrous  by  incompetent  officers, 
had  led  to  crushing  taxation  ;  and  a  poll  tax  brought  a  vivid 
sense  of  their  cost  to  the  people.  If  this  obnoxious  tax  most 
directly  aroused  the  masses,  which  Wat  Tyler  led,  we  yet  find 
the  real  cause  further  back.  "  The  poll  tax  interpreted  to  the 
individual  far  more  intelligently  than  any  political  propagan- 
da the  misdoings  of  the  rulers.''''  ^  To  add  to  the  public  exas- 
peration, the  royal  and  lordly  officials  interfered  with  the 
freedom  of  elections  in  1377  ;  and  this,  Mr.  Stubbs  declares, 
"  is  the  first  occasion  on  which  any  definite  signs  are  traceable 
of  an  attempt  to  influence  an  election  for  a  political  purpose. ' ' 
And  in  view  of  the  bloody  resistance  to  which  it  then  con- 
tributed, as  compared  with  the  tame  submission  with  which 

(      '  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  p.  262. 

*"  There  was  no  check  (Stubbs'  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  434)  on  dishonesty 
and  extortion  among  public  servants,  nor  ally  determination  to  enforce  the 
constitutional  law  ;  and  some  of  the  highest  officers  of  the  court,  the  closest 
friends  and  associates  of  the  King,  were  among  the  chief  offenders. " 
I    3  Stubbs'  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  452. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  29 

we  endure  the  same  abuse,  it  is  certainly  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  demoralizing  effect  of  long  familiarity  with  vice. 

The  haughty  statesmen  of  the  day  did  not  mistake  the  real 
cause  of  the  threatened  outbreak,  and  as  they  saw  its  angry 
spirit  and  vast  proportions,  they  took  measures  to  avert  it. 
These  measures  failed.  A  Parliament  was  called  (after  the 
war),  which  entered  upon  the  detailed  work  of  reforming  the 
administration  ;  and  it  accomplislied  so  much  that  it  has  alwa}^ 
been  known  in  history  as  the  "Good  Parliament."  A  hun- 
dred and  forty  petitions  for  the  redress  of  grievances  (a  most 
unprecedented  number  in  that  age,  when  so  few  could  write, 
and  when  even  to  petition  involved  the  perils  of  imprisonment) 
were  considered  by  that  "  Good  Parhament."  An  examina- 
tion of  public  accounts  was  demanded  and  granted.  Some  of 
the  results  read  Hke  a  modern  report  about  "Washington  or 
Xew  York  City.  Latimer,  the  King's  Chamberlain,  was 
found  ' '  guilty  of  every  sort  of  malversation. ' '  Richard  Lyons, 
"  the  King's  agent,  had  been  a  j^artner  in  some  gigantic 
financial  frauds."  The  great  offendere  were  impeached  and 
removed  from  office.  Women  as  well  as  men  were  found 
guilty.  Among  those  banished  for  corruption  (and  for  a 
violation  of  an  ordinance  against  women  practising  law)  was 
Alice  Perrers  ;  but  Alice  got  into  her  old  place  again  years  , 
later.  A  council  was  elected  by  Parliament  to  act  as  a  clieck-,  | 
onpatronage.  One  of  the  petitions  called  for  the  refomi  in 
tEeconduct  of  justices,  another  of  marshals,  another  of 
sheriffs,  and  another  prays  ' '  that  officers  convicted  of  default  [^ 
or  deceit  may  be  permanently  incapacitated  from  acting. ' ' 

Li  the  hope  of  allaying  popular  indignation,  at  this  period, 
the  aristocratic  leaders  in  Parliament  proposed  a  grand  inquest 
of  abuses,  which  was  ordered,  through  a  high  commission.' 
It  was  the  first  great  inquiry  ever  ordered  in  England  into  the 
abuses  of  public  administration  ;  and  few  in  that  country  have 
been  more  sweeping  and  comprehensive.  In  this  country  none 
so  thorough  has  ever  been  provided  for.  Every  grade  of  office 
and  every  branch  of  administration  and  expenditure — high  and 
low,  civil  and  military,  ecclesiastical  and  judicial,  national  and 

'  13  Richard  II.,  chap.  1. 


30  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN". 

municipal,  domestic  and  foreign,  including  dl  forms  of  the 
exercise  of  official  fmictions — were  included.  The  concise 
enumeration  of  abuses  to  be  investigated  fills  over  four  pages 
of  this  ancient  statute.  Tlie  act  opens  with  a  solemn  recital  of 
the  pervading  abuses  of  administration,  saying  "  that  whereas 
by  the  grievous  complaints  ...  it  appears  that  the  rents 
and  revenues  of  the  realm  ...  by  insufficient  counsel 
and  evil  government  of  .  .  .  great  officers  and  other  per- 
sons, be  so  wasted  and  destroyed,  .  .  .  and  there  is  so 
great  and  outrageous  oppressions,  .  ,  .  and  the  laws  are 
not  executed,  nor  justice  nor  right  done,  to  the  j)eople,  .  .  . 
and  great  mischief  and  damage  has  happened."  Parts  of 
this  recital  are  as  flattering  to  the  dear  people  as  any  modern 
platform  made  to  catch  votes  in  a  canvass,  and  it  was  as  basely 
disregarded  by  its  authors.  The  work  of  the  commission  was 
entered  upon  and  some  abuses  were  exposed  by  it,  but  its  great 
undertaking  was  never  completed.  Tlie  powerful  nobles  at 
its  head,  like  the  venal,  partisan  managers  of  our  day,  never 
intended  to  have  their  income,  their  authority,  or  their  patron- 
age much  curtailed.  The  battle  had  gone  in  favor  of  the 
king's  legions,  and  against  the  undisciplined  people.  In 
the  language  of  the  historian  of  the  times,  "  What  the  poli- 
ticians wanted  was  not  so  much  reform  of  abuses  as  tlie  pos- 
session of  power. ' '  What  they  did  was  the  equivalent  in  our 
day  of  a  series  of  sonorous  resolutions  for  economy  and  reform 
adopted  by  a  national  convention  and  trampled  upon  by  the 
party  that  adopted  them. 

Here,  therefore,  in  the  first  straggle  for  civil  service  reform, 
we  find  the  imscrupulous  politicians — the  legitimate  predeces- 
sors of  tliose  of  om*  time — uniting  with  the  great  nobles  under 
an  arbitrary  prince,  and  intriguing  and  working  together  to 
hold  down  the  people  under  abuses  in  the  civil  administration 
so  great  that  they  were  ready  to  fly  to  arms  for  their  redress. 

While  the  question  whether  the  people  would  take  u])  arms 
hung  in  fearful  suspense,  "  the  Parliament  of  1377  resumed  its 
work  of  reform  and  boldly  assumed  the  control  of  the  expend- 
iture by  means  of  a  standing  committee  of  two  burgesses  of 
London  ;  and  that  of  1378  demanded  and  obtained  an  account 
of  the  mode  in  which  the  subsidies  had  been  spent. ' ' '    Official 


'« «ro/fT«  WASH,«Gr, 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 


'^««. 


corruption  has  so  weakened  the  executive  department  and  so 
aroused  the  auger  of  the  people,  that  Parliament — having  up 
to  this  time  hut  little  if  any  patronage — is  able  to  stand 
boldly  forth  for  reform,  with  all  the  prestige  of  disinterested- 
ness and  popular  indignation  in  its  supjiort.  But  it  is  worthy 
of  notice  that  it  so  exerted  its  new  authority  from  the  outset 
as  to  secure  substantial  patronage  at  the  expense  of  the 
Executive.  Various  new  officers  were  for  the  first  time 
appointed  by  its  own  vote.  It  exerted  a  controlling  influence 
over  other  appointments.  And  we  shall  find  as  we  proceed 
that,  with  the  steady  increase  of  the  power  in  the  legislature, 
there  was  also  a  continued  usurpation  of  executive  func- 
tions and  a  growing  abuse  of  patronage  by  members  of 
Parhament,  until  that  body  finally  became  more  corrupt 
than  even  the  Executive.  As  a  consequence,  Parliament  at 
last  became  the  great  obstacle  encountered  by  the  people 
in  that  final  contest  for  reform,  which,  in  this  generation, 
has  established  the  Merit  System  in  Great  Britain.  At  every 
stage,  corruption  has  prevailed,  in  either  department,  in  the 
proportion  that  it  has  had  control  of  patronage — or,  in  other 
words,  the  management  of  a  spoils  system  of  office. 

The'  rebellion,  I  have  said,  had  not  been  arrested.  Partly 
because  the  reforms  came  too  late,  partly  because*  they  were 
believed  to  be  deceptive,  and  largely  because  when  popular 
indignation  has  been  awakened  it  readily  passes  all  bounds  of 
reason,  the  people  took  up  anns,  by  hundreds  of  tliousands, 
demanding  vengeance  on  official  2)lunderei*s.  It  is  not  for 
me  to  describe  the  bloody  scenes  that  followed,  nor  even 
to  recount  how  a  hundred  thousand  men  from  the  country, 
headed  by  Wat  Tyler,  marched  on  London,  when  its  common 
people  opened  its  gates  and  Tyler  and  his  followers  did  execu- 
tion upon  officers,  whom  they  believed  had  gro\vn  rich  on  the 
spoils  of  office  ;  nor  even  to  narrate  how,  all  over  the  land, 
officials  were  stoned  or  slaughtered,  licenses  for  extortion  and 
grants  of  monopoly  were  seized  and  destroyed,  or,  in  some 
quarters,  how  laA^-yers  who  had  justified  exactions  and  defended 
corruption  were  savagely  put  to  death.    While  taking  merciless 

'  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  p.  SGo. 


32  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

vengeance  on  the  spoilsmen,  liigli  or  low,  who  had  ravaged  the 
State,  they  not  less  mercilessly  flung  to  the  flames  the  men 
from  their  own  ranks  who  were  guilty  of  pillage.  The  soldiers 
proved  too  strong  for  the  undisciplined  people,  and  peace  was 
soon  restored.  The  spoils  system,  with  its  jDoison  and  its  cor- 
rupting methods,  was  left  essentially  unchanged  ;  though,  for 
a  considerable  period,  its  greater  abuses  were  arrested. 

It  would  take  me  too  far  from  the  main  subject  were  I  to 
attempt  to  describe  the  many  ways  in  which  this  terrific 
demonstration  of  the  might  and  wrath  of  the  common  people 
contributed  to  the  wholesome  prestige  of  public  opinion.  It 
put  some  limits  to  the  intolerable  insolence  and  insatiable 
extortion  of  those  in  ofiice.  From  that  date,  perhaps,  the 
olRcials  began  to  be  in  some  small  measure  a  puhlic_&eryice, 
and  hence  in  the  same  degree  ceased  to  be  a  mere  ofiicial 
tyranny.  The  direct  gain  of  political  influence,  however,  was 
rather  on  the  part  of  the  middle  than  of  the  lower  class.  What 
the  latter  gained  was  j^ersonal  freedom  and  not  political  rights, 
which  came  later.  From  this  date,  there  began  in  a  small  way 
to  be  a  public  opinion  demanding  that  offices  be  bestowed  with 
sorneregxird  for  merit — an  opinion  which  has  grown  stronger 
and  stronger  until  tlie  final  victory  it  has  achieved  during  this 
generation.* 

But  there  is  one  authentic  expression  of  the  reform  spirit  of 
this  j)eriod  so  unique  and  remarkable  that  it  must  not  be  over- 
looked.    I  refer  to  the  provisions  of  an  act  passed   in  1388.' 

Nothing  uttered  by  Wyckliife  was  more  original,  more  in 
advance  of  the  age,  or  evinced  a  deeper  conception  of  the 
evils  of  the  times  and  of  the  conditions  of  their  improvement. 
It  was  no  more  to  the  taste  of  Eichard  II.  or  his  court  than 
was  the  Great  Charter  to  that  of  King  John,  or  the  Habeas 
Corpus  to  that  of  Charles  II.,  or  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence to  that  of  George  III.  ;  but,  like  those  memorable 
acts,  it  utters  tlie  high  and  just  demands  of  an  indignant 
people,  when  oppressive  taxation  and  corrupt  officials  have 
aroused  them  to  a  great  eifort  of  patriotism  and  self-preserva- 
tion.    I  give  the  language  of  the  statute  : 

'  12  Richard  II.,  chap.  2. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  33 

**  None  shall  obtain  office  by  suit  or  for  reward  but  upon  desert. 

"  Item  :  (1)  It  is  accorded  that  the  Chancellor,  Treasurer,  Keeper  of 
the  Privy  Seal,  Steward  of  the  King's  House,  the  King's  Chamberlain, 
Clerk  of  the  Rolls,  the  Justices  of  the  one  Bench  and  of  the  other, 
Barons  of  the  Exchequer,  and  all  others  that  shall  be  called  to  ordain, 
name,  or  make  justices  of  the  peace,  sheriflFs,  escheators,  customers,  * 
comptrollers,  or  any  other  officer  or  minister  of  the  King,  shall  be 
firmly  sworn. 

"(2)  That  they  shall  not  ordain,  name,  or  make  justices  of  the 
peace,  sheriffs,  escheators,  customers,  comptrollers,  nor  other  officers 
of  the  King,  for  any  gift  or  brokerage,  favor  or  affection."^ 

"(3)  Nor  that  none  that  pursucth  by  himself  or  by  others,  pri- 
vately or  openly,  to  be  in  any  manner  of  office,  shall  be  put  in  the      / 
same  office  or  any  other. 

"(4)  But  that  they  make  all  such  officers  and  ministers  of  the 
best  and  most  lawful  men,  and  sufficient  to  their  estimation  and 
knowledge." 

When  we  consider  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  fact  that  Parlia- 
ment was  in  great  measure  the  reflection  of  those  who  shared 
the  profits  of  the  despotic  spoils  system — that  that  system 
was  the  bulwark  of  authority  in  the  hands  of  the  titled  and 
privileged  classes,  which  were  supreme  in  the  government — I 
might  say,  when  we  consider  that  no  State  of  this  Union  has 
(so  far  as  I  am  aware,  excej)t  in  a  single  instance'  within  i 
this  decade)  yet  come  even  nearly  up    to   the  moral  stand- 

'  That  is,  Custom  House  officers. 

"Even  the  celebrated  rule  of  Jefferson  which  our  public  men  have  gener- 
ally accepted  as  the  supreme  standard  of  ideal  duty,  falls  far  short  of  the  re- 
quirement of  this  statute  of  Richard  II.  in  passing  no  censure  either  upon 
professional  office  seeking,  or  upon  bestowing  office  for  "gift,  favor,  or 
affection." 

*  In  1877,  the  Legislature  of  New  York,  for  the  purpose  of  arresting  the 
gross  extravagance  and  corruption  that  had  long  prevailed,  under  the  parti- 
san spoils  system  of  managing  its  prisons,  enacted  the  following  section 
(Laws  1877,  chap.  24),  in  a  law  regulating  the  future  government  of  the 
prisons,  in  conformity  with  the  amended  State  Constitution  :   §3.  "  Xo  ap-  |] 
pointmenl  shall  be  made,  in  any  of  the  prisons  of  this  State,  on  grounds  of  1] 
political  partisanship  ;  but  honesty,  capacity,  and  adaptation  shall  constitute  (j 
the  rule  for  appointments  ;  and  any  violation  of  this  rule  shall  be  sufficient  Ij 
cause  for  removal  from  office  of  the  superintendent."  [' 

Already  under  the  new  system,  discipline  has  become  much  more  effl     /f  ^A 
cient,  expenses  have  been  materially  reduced,  and  earnings  largely  increased,     ^^'c 


^ 


34  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN"   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

ard  of  this  statute,  in  dealing  with  public  office — wo  may 
well  be  astonished  at  its  j^rovisions  ;  which  doubtless  are  to  be 
accounted  for  only  by  considering  how  high  public  aspiration 
will  rise,  when  aroused  by  flagrant  wrongs,  and  how  great  was 
the  dread  of  a  repetition  of  the  bloody  scenes  of  the  war  then 
just  ended.  It  may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  second  series  of 
civil  service  rules  ever  promulgated  in  England.  It  plainly 
affirms  the  great  and  fundamental  principles  of  all  refonn  in 
the  public  service — viz. ,  that  the  appointing  power  is  not  a  per- 
Cjiiisite  and  must  not  be  exercised  as  matter  of  favor  ;  but  is 
a  public  trust,  requiring  those  clothed  wnth  it  to  withstand  all 
the  pretensions  of  birth,  wealth,  and  social  prestige,  and  to 
make  all  appointments  out  of  regard  for  personal  merit  and 
the  public  welfare.  Such  a  view  (while  of  course  exactly 
in  the  spirit  of  our  institutions)  was  so  utterly  repugnant 
to  the  feudal  tyranny  of  the  fourteenth  century,  that  it 
requires  no  ordinary  effort  of  the  imagination  to  conceive 
a  force  or  fear  strong  enough  to  extort  its  recognition 
from  a  despotic  king  and  a  jDarliament  of  armed  knights  and 
haughty  lords  and  bishops,  whose  lofty  castles  looked  down 
upon  every  part  of  the  land  where  their  dependents  humbly 
toiled.  This  unique  statute  must  forever  shine  out  conspic- 
uously upon  the  dark  horizon  of  a  rude  and  ignorant  age. 
And  may  we  not  well  believe  that  it  will  be  the  ultimate 
judgment  that  the  princij^les  it  affirms  were  as  well  worthy  of 
adoption  into  our  system,  and  that  they  are  as  essential  to  our 
well-being  as  a  nation,  as  the  Habeas  Cor^jus  or  the  trial  by 
jury  ;  for  these  latter  safeguards,  perhaps,  become  less  impor- 
tant as  civilization  advances  ;  while  the  need  of  worth  and  ca- 
pacity in  office  increases  all  the  more  with  wealth  and  numbers 
and  the  magnitude  of  pubhc  affairs  ? 

As  might  well  have  been  expected  of  a  law  so  much  in  ad- 
vance of  the  age,  when  the  grave  danger  was  passed,  and  the 
old  system  had  had  time  to  regather  its  strength,  this  beneficent 
statute  and  those  who  defended  it  were  disregarded  or  defied. 
In  a  milder  and  more  secret  form,  the  spoils  system  became 
again  supreme,  and  continued  wars,  both  foreign  and  domestic, 
aided  its  growth.  Indeed,  so  bold  did  the  spoilsmen  become 
that  they  undertook  to  vindicate  their  favorite  system  by  deny- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT  BRITAIN.  35 

ing  that  it  liad  been  the  cause  of  the  war  ;  but  Parliament 
fonnally  resolved  to  the  contrary. 

* '  It  laid  before  the  King  a  scheme  for  the  reform  of  his  Household 
and  administration,  the  abuses  of  which  they  declared  to  have  been  the 
causes  of  the  revolt,  and  earnestly  prayed  for  a  general  pardon  for  the 
severities  committed  in  putting  down  the  rebellion.  ...  A 
commission  for  the  reform  of  the  Household,  to  begin  with  the  person 
of  the  King  himself,  was  elected."  ' 

I  have  said  that  the  uprising  under  Tyler  failed  to  secure 
the  political  rights  (though  it  advanced  the  personal  freedom) 
of  the  lower  class  ;  but  it  did  greatly  strengthen  the  power  of 
the  middle  classes  for  the  future  work  of  reform.  It  is  a  strik- 
ing fact  that  the  lords  of  the  spoils  system,  while  forced  to  such 
concessions  to  personaljnerit,  did  yet,  in  the  true  spirit  of  that 
system,  still  exert  their  power  mercilessly  to  keep  down  the 
lower  classes.  The  very  Parliament  by  which  that  statute  was 
enacted,  for  examjjle,  passed  other  acts,  with  the  following 
significant  titles  : 

"Chap.  3.  No  servant  shall  depart  from  one  hundred  to  another 
without  a  testimonial  under  the  King's  seal,  on  pain  of  being  set  in 
the  stocks. 

"  Chap.  4.  The  several  penalties  for  taking  more  wages  than  are 
limited  by  statute. 

"  Chap.  5.  AVhosoever  serveth  in  husbandry  until  twelve  years  old 
shall  so  continue. 

"  Chap.  11.  The  punishment  of  him  who  tells  lies  of  the  peers  or 
great  officers  of  the  realm. 

"  Chap.  13.  No  manner  of  artificer  or  laborer  who  hath  not  lands 
shall  keep  any  dog  or  ferret,  ...  or  net,  for  to  take 
any  deer,  hare  ...  or  other  gentleman'' s  game,  upon  pain  of 
one  year's  imprisonment." 

Another  act  of  1389  is  entitled  that,  "  No  shoemaker  shall  be  a 
tanner,  nor  tanner  a  shoemaker," 

Among  the  petitions  of  this  period  is  one  of  great  landed 
lords,  praying  that  "  no  bondman  or  bondwoman  shall  place 
their  children  at  school,  as  has  been  done,  so  as  to  advance 
their  children." 

'  Stubbs'  Constitutional  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  462. 


36  CIVIL    SERVICE   IN    GREAT   BRITAIN. 

What  I  have  stated  concerning  the  origin  and  methods 
of  our  inherited  spoils  system,  in  connection  with  this  first 
great  effort  of  the  Enghsh  people  to  arrest  it,  enables  me  to 
dismiss,  v/ith  a  few  words,  the  subsequent  rebellion  against 
it  to  which  I  have  alluded.  It  occurred  in  1450,  When  it 
had  passed  its  peaceful  stages  of  petition,  protests  and  par- 
liamentary efforts  to  bring  about  a  redress  of  abuses,  and 
had  culminated  in  a  fearful  uprising,  especially  of  the  middle 
classes,  and  when  the  populace  was  ready  to  join  in  the 
work  of  death,  the  soldier,  Jack  Cade,  became  its  military 
leader.  He,  like  Wat  Tyler,  led  an  armed  multitude  to 
London,  and  again  corrupt  ministers  were  made  victims  of 
the  wrath  of  the  people.  The  great  poj^ular  demand  was  set 
forth  in  a  formal  and  well  considered  "complaint,"  framed 
by  the  "  Commons  of  Kent,"  where  the  people  first  flew 
to  arms.  Its  scope  and  the  whole  aim  of  the  revolt  are 
clearly  stated  by  the  latest  historian  of  the  period  in  a  single 
sentence. 

*'  With  the  exception  of  the  demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  statute 
of  laborers,  the  programme  of  the  Commons  was  now  not  social  but 
political.  The  complaint  calls  for  administrhtlon  and  economical  re- 
form, for  a  change  of  ministry,  a  more  careful  expenditure  of  rev- 
enues, .  .  .  for  the  restoration  of  the  freedom  of  elections,  which 
had  been  broken  in  upon  by  the  interference  both  of  the  Crown  and 
the  great  landowners. ' '  ^ 

I  have  already  recited  a  statute  of  this  date,  which  illustrates 
these  election  abuses  ;  and  other  laws  passed  about  the  same 
date  give  a  clear  idea  of  the  frightful  oppression  and  corrup- 
tion which  finally  forced  the  people  a  second  time  to  take  up 
arms.  An  act  of  1444  limits  the  term  of  sheriffs  to  a  single 
year,  for  the  significant  reason  that,  so  demoralizing  was 
their  official  life,  that  a  longer  term  tended  "  to  the  uphold- 
ing of  manslaughter,  perjury,  and  great  ojii^ression  of  many 
of  the  King's  liege  people."  Another  act"  contains  this 
recital  :    "  Considering    the    great    perjury    and    oppression 

•  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  p.  295. 
"  2  Henry  VI.,  chap.  9. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  37 

which  be  and  have  been  in  this  realm  by  sheriffs,  .  .  . 
clerks,  coroners,  stewards,  bailiffs,  keepers  of  prisons,  and 
others  officei*s,"  a  recital  which,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
government,  in  all  its  brandies,  was  in  the  hands  of  the  high- 
born classes,  and  that  Parhament  was  a  body  of  placemen, 
we  may  well  believe,  does  but  scanty  justice  to  the  shameful 
official  degradation  wliich  this  old  spoils  system  had  a  second 
time  produced.  This  second  rebellion,  like  the  first,  arrested 
the  grosser  abuses  ;  but  the  sources  and  the  methods  of  the 
old  system  itself  were  but  little  disturbed.  They  were  not 
long  in  reproducing  in  milder  form  the  same  old  evils  in  the 
administration. 

Public  opinion,  however,  acquired  a  greater  power  ;  officials 
were  taught  a  wholesome  lesson  of  caution  and  forbearance  ; 
and  all  the  lower  grades  of  society  were  raised  in  the  same 
degree  that  feudalism  and  despotism  lost  their  strength  and 
their  terrors.  But  however  mitigated,  the  spoils  system  itself 
survived.  It  was  never  really  much  broken  in  upon  until  the 
time  of  Cromwell.  In  fact,  it  was  not  possible  to  remove  that 
system  without  removing  much  of  the  very  framework  of  the 
old  British  constitution,  or  without  repudiating  the  great 
theor}'-  of  government  upon  wliich  it  reposed. 

The  insulted  and  pillaged  merchants,  artisans,  and  tenants 
of  those  times  could  see  clearly  enough  that  royal  purveyors 
and  revenue  collectors,  who  bought  their  offices  for  a  round 
sum  of  money — that  sheriffs  and  bailiffs,  who  were  the  tools 
if  not  the  stewards  of  the  great  lords  of  the  country,  pledged 
to  make  their  own  salary  and  fill  their  masters'  treasury  from 
the  profits  of  tlieir  offices — that  beadles  and  priors,  who 
brought  home  to  the  family  fireside  the  arbitrary  power  and 
exacting  demands  of  the  Church — were  generally  men  without 
any  sense  of  honor  or  justice  to  which  they  could  appeal. 
But  never  having  been  accustomed  to  question  the  great 
power  belonging  to  those  officials,  or  much  to  consider 
ultimate  causes  in  politics — they  naturally  thought  that  such 
a  civil  service  law  as  I  have  cited,  requiring  that  only  men 
ot  "  desert "  should  be  appointed,  and  that  professional 
office-seekers  should  be  disqualified,  would  of  its  own  virtue 


38  CIVIL   SERVICE   EST   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

give  adequate  relief.  Tliej  did  not  inquire  what  power  there 
was  to  enforce  such  a  law. 

I  find  no  evidence  that  the  authors  of  the  reform  statute  of 
Richard  II.  had  any  conception  of  the  entire  repugnance  of 
its  princij)les  to  the  theory  and  organization  of  the  government 
to  which  they  had  sworn  allegiance.  Much  less  did  they 
foresee  that  such  princij)les  could  be  carried  into  practice  only 
after  centuries  of  conflict  had  changed  the  base  of  ]30wer  in  the 
State — a  struggle  for  authority  and  monopoly  on  one  side,  and 
liberty  and  justice  on  the  other — to  be  marked  by  blood  and 
martyrdom,  by  conflicts  between  Crown  and  Parliament,  and 
between  Parliament  and  the  people — during  all  which  liberty 
was  to  increase  and  education  to  be  extended  ;  until,  when 
the  j^eople  should  finally  win  the  battle,  they  would  stand,  if 
nominally  under  the  old  monarchy  of  orders  and  privileges, 
yet  in  reality  with  something  near  the  political  equality  of  a 
republic,  and  with  almost  every  right  and  protection  which  a 
republican  freeman  could  expect. 

We  ought  not  to  judge  very  severely  the  failures  of  the  men 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  our  own  times,  we  find  many 
who  fail  to  see  that  the  parts  of  the  spoils  system  which  we 
have  revived  are  in  their  very  nature  liostile  to  the  wdiole 
spirit  of  liberty,  justice,  and  equality  in  which  our  government 
is  founded.  They  hardly  take  notice  that  the  system  is  as 
destructive  to  public  morality  and  economy  as  it  is  injurious 
to  the  great  cause  of  education  and  to  the  salutary  activity  of 
political  parties.  Kor  are  the  numbers  still  small  among  us 
who  do  not  seem  to  comprehend  much  better  than  the  subjects 
of  Richard  II.,  that  no  such  statute  can  be  made  effective, 
except  wlien  re-enforced  by  a  system  of  executive  regulations 
providing  proper  tests  of  fitness,  upon  compliance  with  which 
persons  of  merit  may  secure  the  opportunity  of  appointment 
independent  of  mere  official  or  partisan  favoritism. 


CHAPTER  ni. 

INFLUENCE   OF   DESPOTISM   ON   ADMINISTRATION 

An  Aristocratic  Monarchy  hostile  to  the  just  claims  of  merit. — It  tends  to  ven- 
*  ality  in  bestowing  office.  — To  require  every  little  officer  to  defend  the  doings 
of  the  President,  Senators  and  party  leaders  a  Republican  imitation  of  a 
feudal  tyranny. — The  old  spoils  system  more  courageous  and  consistent 
than  the  modern. — How  the  sale  of  offices  prevented  assessments  and 
frequent  removals. 

KoT  the  spirit  of  the  government  alone,  but  its  very  organ- 
ization and  modes  of  action,  nnder  the  Plantagenets  and  Tu- 
dors,  tended  to  produce  a  spoils  system  of  favoritism,  influence, 
nepotism,  and  yenj,lity,  which  frowned  on  j^ersonal  merit  and 
scorned  tlie  idea  of  official  responsibility. 

In  an  arbitrary  monarchy,  a  primary  necessity  of  its  exist- 
encq  is  absolute  subordination  and  obedience  to  those  in  jjower  ; 
and  hence  official  authority  must  be  so  exerted  as  to  preserve 
the  monopoly  and  exalt  the  influence  of  the  official  class,  to  the 
end  that  they  may  overawe  the  common  jjeople.  All  authority 
comes  from  above — from  the  King.  The  ruling  force  is  fear. 
Such  a  government,  in  its  very  theory  and  administration,  says 
to  the  people  that  office  should  be  obtained  without  regard  to 
personal  merit.  The  king,  the  source  of  all  office,  on  that  theory 
acquires  his  great  place.  The  hereditary  lords,  who  make  laws 
and  hold  social  and  political  precedence,  gain  and  hold  their 
offices  irrespective  of  personal  merit.  They  and  the  councils 
they  form  fill  nearly  every  subordinate  office  in  their  discretion, 
and  they  are  intended  to  do  this  not  in  a  way  tliat  will  promote 
merit  or  do  justice,  but  in  such  way  as  will  exalt  the  king, 
preserve  their  own  rank,  and  secure  obedience  in  all  ranks 
below  them.  From  giving  an  office  at  pleasure,  on  the  con- 
dition of  servility — from  taking  office  by  right  of  birth,  how- 
ever unworthy  the  heir — to  selling  it  for  money,  is  only  a  step. 
When  once  it  is  admitted  that  office  is  to  be  given,  not  to  ben- 


40  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

efit  tlie  people,  or  reward  merit  among  them,  but  to  pre- 
serve a  crown  and  nobility,  to  enforce  gradation  of  rank,  to 
put  down  aspirations  for  freedom,  the  spoils  system  becomes 
inevitable,  or  rather  it  is  already  in  vigorous  growth.  If  a 
rough  royalist  may  be  made  a  sheriff  because  he  will  coerce  an 
election,  or  enforce  the  payment  of  an  arbitrary  tax  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  Crown,  then  the  office  upon  the  same  princijjle 
may  be  sold  to  him  for  such  a  ^Durpose.  If  the  office  belongs 
to  the  king,  duke  or  bishop  to  give  to  whom  he  will,  in  prin- 
ciple it  belongs  to  him  to  sell  to  whom  he  will.  If  he  may  fix* 
the  terms  on  which  he  will  give  it,  he  may  fix  the  terms  on 
which  he  will  sell  it.  To  say  that  a  man  is  entitled  to  an  office 
simply  because  he  is  a  man  of  worth  and  capacity  and  not 
otherwise,  is  in  j^rinciple  to  say  that  he  is  entitled  to  be  a 
knight,  a  baron,  a  duke,  or  a  king  for  the  same  reason — 
obviously  a  principle  as  utterly  repugnant  to  the  theory  of  all 
arbitrary  governments  as  it  is  essential  to  the  prosperity  of  a 
republic.  Therefore  the  spoils  system  was  the  natural  out- 
growth of  despotism  and  aristocracy.  It  is  in  its  very  nature 
a  royal  and  aristocratic  and  not  a  rej)ublican  agency  of  govern- 
ment. 

"When  Blackstone  says  that  the  king  is  the  fountain  of  "jus- 
tice, honor,  office  and  j)rivilege  ;"  that  "it  is  impossible  that 
government  can  be  maintained  without  a  due  subordination  of 
rank  ;"  that  the  king  may  make  war  and  peace,  that  he  may 
create  coi-porations,  that  he  ' '  has  the  prerogative  of  conferring 
privileges  upon  jDrivate  persons  ;"  when  he  declares  that  for 
"  the  maintenance  of  his  dignity  and  the  exertion  of  his  pre- 
rogative," the  king  has  three  councils  to  advise  with — the 
Parliament,  the  law  courts,  and  his  "  privy  council,"  named  at 
his  pleasure,  which  last  council,  by  way  of  eminence,  is  the 
principal  ;  that  "  the  person  of  the  king  is  sacred  even  though 
the  measures  pursued  in  his  reign  be  completely  tyrannical  and 
arbitrary" — we  have  presented  before  us  in  these  outlines  a 
form  of  government  and  a  theory  of  executive  power  and 
responsibility  in  which  the  individual  character  and  capacity  of 
the  officers  and  the  welfare  of  the  citizens  are  everywhere  made 
subordinate  to  the  interests  of  the  class  in  power  and  the  pohcy 
of  the  king  and  his  gi-eat  officers. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  41 

In  the  very  nature  of  such  a  government,  the  number  of 
officers,  the  salaries,  the  tenure  of  office  must  obviously  be 
secondary  to  such  essential  conditions  of  its  existence.  When, 
therefore,  our  Declaration  of  Independence  justly  denounced 
George  III.  because  "  he  made  judges  dependent  on  his  will 
alone  for  the  tenure  of  their  offices  and  the  amount  and  payment 
of  their  salaries,"  and  because  he  created  new  offices  and  sent 
over  officers  to  harass  our  people,  we  really  assailed  the  theory 
of  the  government  and  complained  of  abuses  which  every  gen- 
eration of  Englishmen  before  the  expulsion  of  James  II.  had 
suffered,  and  against  which  they  had  struggled  with  small 
success.  But,  the  strength  and  pernicious  influence  of  this 
royal  and  aristocratic  spoils  system  will  be  greatly  underrated, 
if  we  do  not  bear  in  mind  that  the  king  became  the  head  of  the 
Church  as  well  as  of  the  State,  and  that  the  system  extended 
to  social  order  and  consideration  which  it  regulated,  and  to 
the  Church  which  it  dominated  ;  pursuing  a  policy  in  the 
spheres  of  religion  and  society,  quite  as  imjust  and  demoral- 
izing as  any  that  prevailed  in  politics. 

It  would  perhaps  require  some  apology  for  these  few  words 
in  support  of  propositions  so  nearly  self-evident,  were  it  not 
that  the  difficulties  in  making  any  reform  in  our  civil  ser\nce, 
and  the  faith  of  the  people  in  its  practicabiHty,  are  unfavorably ' 
affected  by  a  loose  theory,  held  by  many  persons,  that  such  re- 
fonns  are  easier  in  a  monarchy  than  under  our  form  of  govern- 
ment. They  regard  the  spoils  system  as  so  original  and  con- 
genial in  our  institutions  that  they  incline  to  tolerate  it  as 
quite  inevitable  ;  when,  in  fact,  our  spoils  system  is  only  a 
faint  rej^roduction,  in  an  uncongenial  age  and  government,  of 
vicious  methods,  of  which  the  coai*se  and  more  corrupt  originals 
are  to  be  found  in  the  most  despotic  periods  of  British  history. 
It  is  in  fact  that  part  of  medieval  despotism,  inherited  by  us, 
which  we  have  allowed  to  sur\'ive — even  slavery. 

The  theory  that  a  president  may  require  that  every  petty 
executive  officer  shall  hold  liis  views  of  politics,  and  may  com- 
pel him  to  exert  himself  to  promote  exe3utive  policy,  is  a 
feeble  reproduction  of  the  theory  and  practice  of  tlie  woi*st  of 
the  Tudor  anct  the  Stuart  princes,  which  were  that  everywhere 
the  officer  must  be  a  believer  in  the  divine  right  and  per- 


/ 


w 


42  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

fection  of  the  king,  and  an  active  advocate  and  cliampion  of 
royal  prerogative.  Tlie  theory  that  a  State  Senator  may 
selfishly  use  his  patronage,  and  that  all  his  appointees  must 
assent  to  his  faith  and  promise  to  use  their  official  influence, 
to  promote  his  prestige  and  his  re-election,  are  but  tame  and 
puny  imitations  of  that  arrogant,  old,  feudal  jjrerogative  by 
reason  of  which  every  noble  was  the  local  ruler  of  his  vici- 
nage and  all  political  action  and  all  social  life  were  obedient 
to  his  will,  as  a  perpetual  representative  in  a  feudal  Senate. 
The  theory  that  a  party  may  prostitute  its  authority  and  pat- 
ronage in  order  to  gain  offices  and  levy  assessments,  and  must 
do  so  to  keep  itself  in  power,  is  the  cunning,  cowardly,  modern 
form  of  the  old  despotism,  under  which  the  king,  the  nobles,  the 
knights,  the  squires,  and  the  gentlemen — being  the  party  for- 
ever dominant — perpetuated  their  supremacy  by  using  official 
authority  in  every  form  of  injustice  for  keeping  the  great  body  of 
the  people  in  subjection.  The  only  parts  of  our  system,  I  am 
compelled  to  believe,  which  Henry  YIII.,  or  Elizabeth,  or 
James  II. ,  or  George  III. ,  would  like,  would  be  those  theories 
of  bestowing  office  under  whicli  personal  merit  may  be  over- 
looked in  the  pretended  interest  of  keeping  a  j^arty  in  power, 
and  of  causing  executive  policy  or  j)artisan  opinions  to  be  ad- 
vocated by  the  carrier  of  every  mail-bag  and  the  keeper  of  every 
office-door.  But  more  consistently  they  would  also  require  that 
every  priest  and  beadle  of  the  Church,  and  every  general  and 
corporal  of  the  army,  as  well  as  all  the  members  of  the  legis- 
lature, should  exhibit  the  same  evidence  of  true  faith  and  alle- 
giance. 

In  fact,  one  of  the  marked  distinctions  between  the  original 
despotic-spoils  system  and  the  modern  partisan-spoils  system 
is  this  :  that  the  old  system  was  bold,  consistent,  and  out- 
spoken— not  pretending  to  make  selections  for  office  out  of 
regard  for  personal  merit  or  economy,  or  the  general  wel- 
fare. It  plainly  asserted  that  those  in  jjower  had  a  right  and 
duty  to  keep  themselves  in  power  and  preserve  their  monopoly 
in  any  way  which  their  judgment  should  approve,  and  that  the 
people  were  bound  to  submit  ;  while  the  modern  system,  at  all 
times  carrying  the  spirit  of  the  original  as  far  as  it  dares,  falsely 
pretends  to  be  guided  by  personal  worth  and  the  public  interest. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN".  43 

If  it  shall  be  noticed  that  in  the  examples  given  in  illustra- 
tion of  the  original  spoils  system,  it  does  not  appear  that  the 
modem  abuse  of  frequent  removals  and  of  levying  assessments 
upon  officers  and  placemen,  or  even  the  common  forms  of 
bribery,  are  very  prominent,  the  explanation  is  easy.  In  the 
practice  of  the  original  system,  the  theory  that  the  appointing 
power  and  all  official  authority  are  mere  perquisites  was  carried 
to  its  legitimate  results.  Offices  and  places,  royal  prerogatives 
of  every  grade,  and  great  and  little  official  favors,  were,  as  we 
have  seen,  openly  sold,  or  were  used  as  bribes  and  threats  in 
whatever  way  found  most  available.  In  order  that  the  market 
rate  should  be  high,  it  was  necessary  that  the  purchaser  should 
be  assured  that  he  could  retain  the  commodity  bought,  and  that 
it  would  not  be  made  valueless  by  the  further  exercise  of  official 
authority  in  lev^jang  taxes.  A  nobleman  or  minister  could 
sell  an  office  or  a  monopoly  for  but  a  poor  price,  if  any  body 
of  ministers  and  lords,  or  even  the  king,  could  thereafter  tax 
that  office  or  monopoly  at  pleasure,  or  remove  the  owner.  In 
other  words,  the  greater  corruption  of  open  sale  and  barter  of 
offices  in_great  measure  excluded  those  peculiar  and  imftp£_^ 
abuses  of  removals  and  assessments.  So  strongly,  indeetl/did 
this  influence  of  general  venality  tend  to  permanence  of  tenure 
in  the  subordinate  offices,  and  to  cause  them  to  be  farmed  out 
to  non-resident  agents,  after  the  Turkish  fashion,  that  non- 
resident officers  were  forbidden  in  1402.  And  in  1519  '  an  act 
was  passed  with  this  title  :  "  Customers,'  controllers,  searchers, 
etc. ,  shall  be  removable  at  the  pleasure  of  the  king  and  shall 
be  resident  upon  their  office." 

For  similar  reasons  bribery  of  electors  or  members  of  Parlia- 
ment— which,  in  later  years,  became  one  of  the  most  serious 
abuses  in  Great  Britain — was  as  yet  but  Kttle  known.  Electors 
felt  small  interest  in  officers  sure  to  be  servilely  obedient  to  the 
king  and  the  nobles  ;  and  members  of  Parliament  were  almost  ,' 
without  patronage  and  wielded  only  a  small  portion  of  the 
legislative  power  which,  in  later  centuries,  growing  to  be 
almost  supreme,  made  the  vote  of  a  member  and  even  of  an 
elector  of  value  in  the  great  market  of  politics. 

'  1  Henry  IV.,  chap.  13.  '  Custom-IIouse  officers. 


CHAPTEE  lY. 

ADMINISTRATION   UXDEE   THE   TUDOES    AND   UNTIL    CEOMWELL. 

Venality  under  Henry  VII. — Boroughs  created  to  control  Parliament. — Its 
independence  assailed. — Elections  interfered  with. — Dock-yard  influence. 
— Spoils  system  extended  to  the  Church  and  its  effect. — Leads  to  royal  as- 
sumptions of  absolute  power. — James'  interference  with  the  judgeSi. — Great 
corruption  under  James. — Lord  Coke  and  Lord  Bacon. — Parliament  grows 
bolder. — The  Petition  of  Right. — Our  party  assessments  repugnant  to  that 
memorable  statute. 

Haa'ing,  I  trust,  sufficiently  explained  the  origin  and  spirit 
of  the  spoils  system,  which  we  have  so  largely  reproduced,  it  is 
unnecessary,  and  it  would  be  tedious,  to  follow  the  details  of  its 
application,  or  even  to  note  all  the  ways  in  which,  from  time  to 
time,  its  worst  features  were  removed.  AYhile  there  were  various 
modifications — sometimes  toward  what  was  worse,  and  some- 
times toward  what  was  better — there  was  no  essential  change 
of  the  system  after  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  century  until 
the  time  of  Cromwell.  In  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  the 
crown  itself  was  treated  as  a  mere  personal  perquisite  of  him 
who  wore  it,  which  he  was  authorized  by  statute  to  dispose  of 
by  last  will  and  testament,  and  Henry  did  so  dispose  of  it. 
The  great  and  exciting  religious  questions  and  the  frequent 
wars  by  which  the  politics  of  the  period  were  embroiled  and 
the  higher  thought  of  the  nation  was  absorbed,  were  in  every 
way  unfavorable  to  good  administration.  I  need  not  recall 
the  political  history  of  the  reigns  of  Henry  YIII.,  Edward  VI., 
Mary,  Elizabeth,  or  James  I.,  as  it  is  familiar  knowledge  that 
they  cover  a  period  in  which  men  seem  to  have  been  almost 
willing  to  forego  civil  liberty  and  official  morality,  if  they 
could  have  plenty  of  angry  contentions  and  bloody  scenes  over 
church  dogma  and  ecclesiastical  forms.  The  leading  minds 
were  given  the  great  subjects  of  church  reformation.     There 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN.  45 

can  be  little  doubt  that  the  long  continuance  of  political  cor- 
ruption greatly  debased  official  morality,  and,  as  a  natural  con- 
sequence, private  morality  ;  and  it  is  even  a  question  whether, 
on  the  whole,  both  the  morals  of  politics  and  methods  of  gov- 
ernment did  not  degenerate  during  this  period. 

A  few  illustrations  of  the  abiding  spirit  of  the  old  system, 
which  have  an  important  bearing  upoif  later  changes,  are  all  the 
notice  I  shall  need  to  take  of  those  times.  So  irresistible 
was  the  spoils  system,  and  so  little  fearless  public  opinion  was 
there  under  the  firet  two  Tudor  princes  (1485  to  1547),  that 
almost  the  only  resistance  made  to  the  government  was  directed 
against  arbitrary  taxes  levied  by  the  Crown.  Speaking  of  the 
first  of  them  (Henry  YII.),  Ilallam  says  that  "  even  the  King's 
clemency  seems  to  have  sf)rung  from  the  sordid  motive  of  sell- 
ing pardons  ;  and  it  has  been  shown  that  he  made  a  profit  of 
every  office  in  his  court,  and  received  money  for  conferring 
bishoprics."  Early  in  the  next  reign,  we  begin  to  find  the 
strong  manifestation  of  that  pernicious  appliance  of  the  spoils 
system,  through  which,  frequently,  in  the  succeeding  centuries, 
Parliament  became  little  more  than  a  body  of  servile  placemen, 
named  by  the  king  and  the  great  nobles,  to  endorse  their 
policy  and  pay  their  henchmen  and  relatives  in  office.  Refer- 
ring to  the  reign  of  Henry  YIII.,  Mr.  Ilallam  says  that  ''a 
considerable  part  of  the  Commons  appears  to  have  consisted 
of  the  King's  Household  officers." 

In  order  to  secure  compliaiit»members,  as  Parliament  increas- 
ed in  importance,  Edward  YI.  created  twenty  new  boroughs, 
Mary  fom'teen,  and  Elizabeth  as  many  as  sixty-two  ;  nor  did  the 
government  *'  scruple  a  direct  and  avowed  interference  with 
elections."  It  was  the  habit  of  the  Tudor  kings  to  cause 
letters  to  be  sent  to  the  electors  stating  "  our  pleasure  and 
commandment,"  as  to  who  should  be  elected  to  Parliament. 
One  of  Mary's  letters,  written  in  1554,  "  admonishes  the  elect- 
ors to  choose  Catholics."  Speaking  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  Mr. 
Hallam.  says  :  "  The  ministry  took  much  pains  with  elections. 

.  .  .  The  House  accordingly  was  filled  with  placemen, 
civilians,  and  common  lawyers  grasping  at  preferment."     Re- 

'  Constitutional  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  27. 
4 


46  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

f erring  to  about  the  same  date,  Mr.  Froude  Rays  :  "  Either  a 
circular  was  addressed  to  the  sheriffs  of  counties  or  mayors  of 
towns,  simply  naming  the  persons  who  were  to  be  chosen,  or 
the  electors  were  instructed  to  accept  their  directions  from  some 
members  of  the  privy  council.  In  some  instances  the  orders 
of  the  Crown  were  direct  to  the  candidate  himself. "  Here  we 
find  the  original  of  our  modem  interference  with  the  freedom 
of  local  elections  by  the  national  administration  and  the  party 
managers.  And  when  Mr.  Froude  says  that,  ' '  in  Portsmouth 
and  Southampton  the  government  influence  was  naturally  para- 
mount, through  the  dockyards  and  establishments  maintained 
in  them, ' '  I  think  we  may  naturally  infer  that  the  venal  and 
corrupt  use  of  dockyard  sinecurists  and  custom-house-patron- 
age coercion  for  carrying  elections  are  not  of  republican 
origin,  but  are  at  least  three  and  a  quarter  centuries  old.  The 
early  leaders  of  the  spoils  system  did  not,  however,  stop  with 
dictating  as  to  who  should  go  to  parliaments  ;  but,  with  in- 
flexible consistency,  they  endeavored  to  control,  arbitrarily,  the 
tongues  as  well  as  elections  of  their  members.  Blackstone 
tells  us  that  "  the  glorious  Queen  Elizabeth  made  no  scruple 
to  direct  her  parliaments  to  abstain  from  discoursing  of  mat- 
ters of  state."  Mr.  Ilallam  says  the  Queen  used  to  send 
messages  to  Parliament  ' '  to  spend  little  time  in  motions  and 
make  no  long  speeches. ' '  With  us  it  is  only  the  tyranny  of 
the  party  majority  that  suppresses  debate  on  disagreeable  sub- 
jects. "  It  became  the  common  whisper  that  no  one  must 
speak  against  licenses  lest  the  Queen  and  council  should  be 
angry."  And  at  the  close  of  the  session,  "  the  Lord  Keeper 
severely  reprimanded  those  audacious,  arrogant,  and  presump- 
tuous members  who  had  called  her  Majesty's  grants  and 
prerogatives  in  question."  The  modern  partisan  managers 
only  send  a  few  thousands  of  assessment  collections  to  the 
district  of  an  independent  member  and  defeat  his  re-election. 
We  have  not,  to  be  sure,  admitted  that  the  practice  of  in- 
terfering with  the  freedom  of  elections,  in  aid  of  the  party,  as 
it  is  called,  would  justify  a  like  interference  with  the  freedom 
of  debate  ;  but  is  it  quite  certain  that,  under  our  more  partisan 

'  History,  vol.  v.,  p.  428. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GE^AT  BRITAIN-.  /)  ^47  ^ 

application  of  tlie  spoils  system,  tlie  freedom  of  debate  is  not 
as  much  hampered,  or  that  it  does  not  require  as  much  courage 
and  as  much  imperil  a  re-election,  to  oppose  the  commands  of 
the  party,  as  it  did  to  oppose  those  of  Henry  YIII,  or  of  Eliz- 
abeth ?     The  same  system  which  accorded  to  noblemen  a  sort 
of  monopoly  of  all  offices  not  directly  filled  by  the  king  or  his 
ministers,  also  gave  them  formal  patents  for  "  the  privilege  of 
importing  wine  free  of  duty  for  the  consumption  of  their  house-    , 
holds" — patents  which  we  know  have  hardly  been  needed  by   \     -. 
the  lords  of  our  patronage  system,  to  secure  them  a  still  more        ^ 
extensive  exemption  from  the  payment  of  duties. 

During  this  period,  as  in  the  earlier  periods  to  which  I  have 
referred,  the  spoils  system  was  not  kept  within  the  sphere 
of  politics,  but  was  boldly  extended  to  that  of  religion  as 
well ;  and  with  results  equally  demoralizing.  "  In  the 
country '  the  patron  of  a  benefice  no  longer  made  dis- 
tinction between  a  clergjmian  and  a  layman.  .  .  ,  He 
presented  his  steward,  his  huntsman,  or  his  gamekeeper. 
Clergy,  even  bishops — who  called  themelves  Gospellers — would 
hold  three  or  four  or  more  livings,  doing  service  in  none  ;  or 
if,  as  a  condescension,  they  appointed  curates,  they  looked  out 
for  starving  monks  who  would  do  the  duty  for  the  lowest  pay 
— men  who  would  take  service  indifferently  under  God  or  the 
devil,  to  keep  life  in  their  famished  bodies.  .  .  .  The 
cathedrals  and  churches  of  London  became  the  chosen  scenes 
of  riot  and  profanity.  St.  Paul's  was  the  Stock  Exchange  of 
the  day,  where  the  merchants  of  the  city  met  for  business  and 
the  lounge  where  the  young  gallants  gambled,  fought  and 
killed  each  other.  They  rode  their  horses  through  the  aisles 
and  stabled  them  among  the  monuments." 

How  naturally  such  a  spoils  system,  prevailing  through 
so  many  centuries,  and  forever  saying  to  kings  and  nobles, 
"  Your  right  it  is  to  rule  through  officers  and  favorites 
selected  at  your  caprice,  without  regard  to  merit,  economy,  or 
the  general  welfare,"  led  on  to  the  Star  Chamber,  to  Charles 
I.  and  James  II.,  to  Laud  and  to  Jeffreys — is  too  obvious  for 
comment.    Nothing  but  the  influence  of  such  a  system,  in  s})irit 

'Froude's  History,  vol.  v.,  p.  255-257. 


48  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN. 

asserting  omnipotent   and  irresponsible  power  in  tlie  ruler, 
makes  it  conceivable  that  even  James  I.   could  ever  have  used 
those  words  of  sublime  audacity  :  "  As  it  is  atheism  and  blas- 
phemy in  a  creature  to  dispute  what  the  Deit}^  may  do,  so  it  is 
presumption  and  sedition  in  a  subject  to  dispute  what  a  king 
may  do  in  the  height  of  his  power."     And  I  am  persuaded 
that  the  feeling  so  general  even  to  this  day,  that  it  is  a  less 
offence  to  use  the  appointing  power  for  a  corrupt  or  selfish 
I  purpose  than  it  is  to  use  the  public  money  for  the  same  purpose, 
/  has  its  source  far  back  in  those  arbitrary  centuries  during  which 
O        all  example,  all  law,  all  teaching,  impressed  upon  our  ancestors 
the  doctrine  that  the  use  of  official  authority  was  absolute  and 
'  irresponsible  in  him  who  possessed  it,  even  if  that  possession 
was  not  a  divine  favor  too  sacred  and  awful  to  be  questioned 
by  ordinary  mortals.     We  may  find  the  root  of  this  pernicious 
distinction  in  the  theory  of  King  James  himself,  for  even  his 
doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  did  not  mean  that    he 
might  use  the  public  money  or  the  public  stores  at  his  pleasure 
or  corruptly,    but  that  he    might    so  use   his    "  prerogative 
royal  " — the  power  to  appoint  and  remove  officers  and  j)lace- 
men — and  herein  he  agreed  exactly  with  partisan  managers  of 
modern  times.     The  King  and  Laud  scratinized  the  religious 
opinions  of  office-seekers  as  carefully  as  they  did  their  political 
opinions  ;  and  orthodoxy  in  the  former,  not  less  than  in  the 
latter,  was  an  indispensable  condition  of  royal  favor. 
/        It  was  as  much  a  j)art  of  this  old  spoils  system  *  that  every 
officer  should  obey  every  direction  of  his  superior,  as  it  was 
that  an  appointment  might  be  made  or  sold  at  pleasure  ;  and 
this  they  extended  to  military  and  judicial   offices  as  well. 
The  unflinching  champions  of  that  system  at  this  period  re- 
fused to  see  any  distinction  between  claiming  an  arbitrary 
I  right  to  make  a  judge  or  a  justice  out  of  a  compliant,  incom- 
'  petent  favorite  (with  the  intent  that  he  should  be  obedient), 

^  There  was  another  old  method  of  strengthening  the  opinion  and  policj^ 
of  the  government,  quite  remarkable  for  its  arbitrary  forecast.  "  The  rapid 
increase  of  London  [says  Mr.  Hallam]  "  continued  to  disquiet  the  court.  It 
was  the  stronghold  of  political  and  religious  disaffection,  hence  the  prohibi- 
tions of  erecting  new  houses,  which  had  begun  under  Elizabeth,  were  con- 
tinually repeated." 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  49 

and  the  right  to  command  him  if  disobedient  ;  or  between  a 
political  test  for  office  and  a  religious  test  for  office.  And 
although  we  may  all  the  more  for  this  reason  admire  the 
heroic  sense  of  justice  which  caused  Lord  Coke  to  refuse  to 
give  judgment  as  King  James  ordered,  we  can  hardly  deny 
that  the  king's  commands  -were  very  much,  if  not  more  than 
the  refusal  of  Coke,  in  harmony  with  the  constitution  of  that 
day  and  with  the  practice  under  it. ' 

When  James  prohibited  the  judges  from  "  woimding  his 
prerogative  under  pretext  of  the  interest  of  private  persons," 
and  Coke  was  first  suspended  and  then  dismissed  from  his 
office  because  he  answered,  ' '  that  when  the  case  should  arise 
he  would  do  what  should  be  fit  for  a  judge  to  do,"  he  was 
naturally  thought  in  official  circles  to  be  disobedient  and 
erratic — a  view  of  the  matter  not  so  strange  when  we  reflect 
that  he  assrted  a  principle  of  official  independence  which,  in 
our  generation  even,  has  cost  many  a  manly  ofiicer  his  place 
when  he  attemjjted  to  protect  "  the  interest  of  private  per- 
sons" against  the  tyranny  of  partisan  dictation.  Sinecurists 
and  placemen  swarmecTIh  all  the  offices,  and  extravagance  and 
inefficiency  prevailed  everywhere  in  Church  and  State,  in  the 
army  and  the  navy.  The  peace  expenditures  of  James  I. 
exceeded  the  war  expenditures  of  Elizabeth.  According  to 
Mr.  Ilallam,  the  terrific  powers  of  the  Star  Chamber  (a  natural 
growth  of  the  spoils  system)  were  resorted  to  by  James  I.  as 
much  "  to  eke  out  a  scanty  revenue  by  penalties  and  for- 
feitures" as  for  any  other  purpose.  Lord  Bacon's  official 
corruption  was  i3unislied,  not  so  much  because  it  was  of  a 
kind  uncommon  as  because  it  was  that  of  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
the  keeper  of  the  king's  conscience,  and  the  highest  subject 
of  the  realm.  Mr.  Ilallam  says  that  "  shameless  corruption 
characterizes  the  reign  of  James  beyond  every  other  in  our  his- 
tory." Mr.  Green"  says,  "  Payment  of  bribes  to  him  (the 
Duke  of  Buckingham),  or  marriage  with  his  greedy  relatives, 
became  the  only  road  to  political  preferment. ' '     James  not 

'  Under  the  Tudors  "  the  Judges  in  the  application  and  exposition  of  the 
criminal  law  were  servile  tools  of  the  sovereign." — Creasy  on  the  English 
Constitution. 

'  History  English  People,  p.  480. 


50  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

only  had  offices  sold  and  sliared  the  proceeds  with  his  favorite 
ministers,  but  he  sold  his  prerogative  of  making  corporations 
and  granting  monopolies  ;  getting,  for  example,  a  large  sum 
for  a  starch-making  monopoly  and  £10,000  for  a  soap-making 
charter,  l^or  was  this  the  worst,  for,  more  merciless  than  any 
modern  tyrant  of  patronage,  he  revoked  this  soap-charter  and 
exacted  a  large  sum  for  a  new  one  ;  and  out  of  ' '  political 
resentment  "  he  even  extorted  large  fines  from  those  who  did 
not  come  forward  and  receive  knighthood  at  his  hands. 

These  administrative  abuses,  and  the  extravagant  claims  of 
prerogative  to  which  they  led  on,  were,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  in  great  part  at  least  the  causes  which  drove  the  people 
to  arms  (for  the  third  time  in  self-defence)  during  the  next 
reign.  "While  thus  all  official  life,  both  lay  and  clerical,  was 
becoming  more  and  more  a  festering  source  of  corruption  and 
a  vast  agency  of  tyranny,  the  control  of  which  tended  to  those 
extravagant  claims  of  prerogative  made  by  Gardiner  and  Laud, 
and  Charles  and  James,  there  was  on  the  other  hand  an  increase 
of  wealth  and  intelligence  and  a  growing  courage  among  the 
common  jpeople,  whom  the  poison  of  the  spoils  system  least 
touched.  Parliament  l>ecame  more  active  and  aggressive.  Its 
members  secured  more  influence  over  appointments  ;  and  with 
this  tendency  there  came  a  greater  desire  for  seats  in  that  body. 
In  such  a  state  of  public  morality  as  then  existed,  bribery 
was  an  inevitable  consequence.  In  the  session  of  1571,  a  fine 
had  been  imposed  for  bribery  in  a  parliamentary  election. 
This  is  the  first  instance  on  record  of  the  punishment  of  that 
offence  in  England  ;  an  offence  which  for  a  long  time  grew 
more  frequent,  and  which  in  some  form,  for  more  than  two 
centuries,  continued  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  scandals  of  Eng- 
lish politics. 

Popular  intelligence  had  become  too  great,  and  the  virtues 
of  private  life  too  robust,  to  longer  tolerate  supinely  the  huge 
vices  bred  in  official  circles.  The  spirit  of  resistance  was 
aroused.  Tlie  demand  for  reform  first  made  itself  greatly 
felt  in  the  election  of  1614,  wliicli  brought  such  men  as  John 
Pym  and  John  Eliot  into  Parliament.  Puritanism,  and  the 
great  law  called  the  "  Petition  of  Right,"  were  the  well-known 
expression  of  that  refonn  spirit.     x\nd  as  we  read  the  princi- 


CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT   BRITAIN.  51 

pal  demand  of  that  celebrated  law,  "  tliat  no  man  hereafter 
be  compelled  to  make  or  yield  any  gift,  loan,  benevolence,  or 
tax,  or  such  like  charge,  without  common  consent  bj  act  of 
Parhament,"  and  reflect  upon  the  noble  spirit  by  which  it  was 
extorted,  it  is  well  to  remember  that,  although  that  higli  de- 
mand has  long  since  been  complied  with  in  England,  yet  in  tliis 
republican  country  (to  which  even  Cromwell  and  Hampden 
sought  to  flee  from  the  tyranny  of  Charles),  tens  of  thousands 
of  public  officei's  and  employees — national,  state,  and  munici- 
pal— have  long  been  compelled  to  annually  make  "gifts  and 
benevolences,"  under  the  name  of  political  assessments,  at  the 
peril  of  dismissal  or  with  the  hope  of  promotion — a  threat  and 
a  bribe  as  great  and  as  debasing  as  any  that  King  Charles  could 
have  inflicted  upon  the  meanest  in  his  civil  service. 

Tlie  story  is  too  familiar  to  warrant  any  repetition  here, 
how  the  English  people,  when  once  aroused,  carried  on  their 
contest  against  tlie  spoils  system  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  But 
I  cannot  dismiss  this  period  without  a  word  of  observation  as  to 
the  debasing  effect  upon  the  public  conscience  of  familiarity 
with  flagrant  public  "wrong.  The  readiness  with  which  we 
supinely  endure  such  exactions  upon  the  members  of  our  civil 
service  and  upon  those  who  work  for  the  public — such  legalized 
pillag3  of  the  people's  money  (for  that  j)artisan  tyi-anny  which 
coerces  the^  assessment  also  keeps  up  salaries  and  wages  need- 
lessly high  in  order  that  the  assessment  may  be  paid),  at  the 
same  moment  that  we  abhor  and  prohibit  monopolies  and  the 
sale  of  offices — is  certainly  a  remarkable  instance  of  that  effect. 
We  seem  to  think  it  a  wholly  different  wrong  to  sell  an  oflice 
or  a  franchise  outright  from  that  involved  in  handing  it  arbi- 
trarily over  to  a  servile  dependent,  on  the  condition  that  his 
master  may  exact  from  him  an  annual  rent,  to  be  flxed  at  his 
will,  on  the  peril  of  ejection.  The  chances,  I  venture  to 
tliink,  are  that  he  who  holds  by  purchase  will  cherish  the  more 
wholesome  and  manly  feeling  of  independence.  That  noble 
man,  Sir  Samuel  Romilley,  found  a  more  honorable  independ- 
ence in  a  seat  in  Parhament  he  purchased  than  a  partisan  sys- 
tem would  allow  him  to  secure  by  an  ordinary  election.  xVnd 
perhaps  John  Hampden  himself  would  not  think  Charles  I.  a 
greater  t}Tant,  because  he  arbitrarily  required  a  tax  from  all 


52  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

of  his  subjects  alike  for  the  purposes  of  the  public  treasury 
than  he  would  consider  that  American  President  or  Secretary 
to  be  who  should,  as  arbitrarily,  require  a  tax  from  those 
whom  he  has  tlie  power  to  dismiss,  to  be  used,  not  in  aid  of  the 
public  treasury,  but  for  the  baser  purposes  of  keeping  himself 
and  his  friends  in  office,  and  his  opponents  out  of  office.  But 
it  is  plain  enough  that  such  a  President  might  be  a  far  greater 
coward  than  the  King  ;  since  real  courage  is  required  to  prac- 
tice extortion  upon  a  whole  nation,  while  any  vulgar  tyrant 
may  enforce  depredations  upon  a  few  thousand  of  his  official 
subordinates.  The  justification  made  by  James  and  Laud  for 
levying  the  tax  was  in  principle  precisely  that  made  by  mod- 
em partisans  in  defence  of  party  assessments,  that  it  was 
necessary  to  uphold  their  principles  and  to  keep  their  party  in 
power. 


CHAPTER  y. 

Cromwell's  admixistrative  system. 

He  rejected  the  worst  abuses  of  the  old  system,  but  relied  on  patronage. — 
His  situation  similar  to  that  of  a  party  leader — A  sort  of  partisan  system 
introduced. — He  applied  a  joint  test  of  religion  and  politics  at  the  gates  of 
office. — Made  important  reforms. — The  test  applied  to  members  of  Parlia- 
ment and  army  officers. — A  better  system  hardly  possible  in  his  day.— 
Marvel,  Eliot,  and  Vane  as  reformers. 

Cromwell  gave  the  first  blow  to  tlie  despotic  spoils  system 
whicli  was  heavy  enough  to  break  in  its  framework.     He  was 
no  mere  administrative  reformer,  but  a  mighty  impersonation 
of  a  new  spirit  in  religion  and  politics,  of  better  methods  in 
government  and  of   grander  conceptions  of  the   duties   and 
responsibilities  both  of  rulers  and  of  citizens.     It  was  principles 
and  ideas — a  well-defined  creed  in  religion,  and  large  views  in 
politics — and  not  class  interests  or  traditional  favoritism,   that 
were  to  bear  sway  while  he  lived.     There  were  neither  party  j 
platforms  nor  parties  in  the  modem  sense,  but  (excepting  a 
few  gathered  separately)  there  were  two  great,  hostile  bodies  in 
the  state — the  one  standing  together  for  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  for  rank,  privilege,  and  the  old_8poils.jystem  generally, 
and  the  other  for  Cromwell  and  the  principles  and  sj^irit  of  the 
great  revolution  of  which  he  was  the  leader.     Cromwell  and 
his  fellow-officers  recognized  themselves  as  representing  at  least 
that  portion  of  the  people  who  believed  as  they  did  ;  and 
hence  they  regarded  themselves  as  responsible  to  them   for 
economy  and  efficiency  in  the  administration.      This  placed 
them  much  in  the  attitude  of  party  leaders  ;  having  imjiosed 
upon  them  the  obligation  of  justifying  their  use  of  official 
authority  to  so  many  of  the  people  as  constitute  the  ruhiig 
majority.     This  sort  of  responsibility,   directly  to  at  least  a 
great  portion  of  the  people,  rather  than  to  a  privileged  and 


54  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

official  class  alone,  marks  tlie  great  advance  of  party  over 
despotic  government  in  the  exercise  of  official  power.  Such 
a  power  may  be  used  as  corruptly  by  a  party  as  by  a  despot 
(as  1  shall  have  occasion  to  point  out),  but  not  so  despotically  ; 
and  hence  a  partisan  use  of  such  authority  seems  to  be  naturally 
an  intermediate  stage  of  progress  between  the  arbitrary  use  of 
that  power  by  a  despot  and  its  use  by  officers  who,  regarding 
their  authority  as  a  public  trust,  make  appointments  on  the 
basis  of  personal  merit. 

It  is  plain  that  Cromwell  must  have  men  of  capacity  in  the 
public  service,  or  his  rule  would  be  short  ;  and  neither  his 
temper  nor  the  sj)irit  of  the  times  tended  to  make  him  any 
more  scrupulous  about  slaughtering  the  innocents  and  driving 
out  those  who  did  not  accept  his  creed  in  the  public  service 
than  he  was  of  cutting  down  his  enemies  on  the  Held  of  battle. 
It  was  a  time  of  bloody  antagonism  and  desperate  measures. 
He  had  no  leisure  for  perfecting  methods  of  administration, 
and  the  violent  sentiment  of  the  times  demanded  retaliation 
and  proscription.  He  made  some  refonns  of  great  import- 
ance, with  a  wise  regard  to  the  interest  of  the  people  ;  and, 
in  his  own  interest  and  that  of  his  favorites  and  followers, 
he  applied  the  partisan  system  with  a  vigor  and  a  logical 
consistency  from  which  its  modern  votaries  would  shrink. 
Himself  a  member  of  Parliament,  he  was,  perhaps,  the  first 
to  advocate  the  salutary  doctrine  that  legislators  ought  not  to 
hold  executive  office  or  interfere  with  its  proper  duties,  but  he 
fell  from  the  great  principles  of  his  speech  by  remaining  a 
member  while  he  held  the  most  influential  executive  office  in 
the  army.  He  struck  from  the  pay  rolls  many  drones  and 
sinecurists.  He  dealt  heavy  blows  upon  court  favoritism  and 
extravagance  generally.  He  infused  vigor  into  every  2>ai't  of 
the  administration,  and  character  and  economy  were  more 
regarded  in  his  apjiointments  than  ever  before.  He  gave 
members  of  Parliament  a  voice  in  the  appointment  of  minis 
ters,  and,  for  a  time  at  least,  he  allowed  them  full  legislative 
authority  ;  but  he  also  dispersed  one  Parliament  at  the  point 
of  the  sword,  and  he  locked  the  members  of  another  out  of 
their  hall  until  they  promised  to  approve  his  policy.  He 
made   a  creed  and  a  policy  of  his  religion  and  his  pohtics 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN".  55 

united  ;  and  lie  enforced  it  in  selecting  the  members  of  his 
regiment  as  well  as  the  members  of  his  civil  service.  He  was 
too  manly  and  statesmanlike  to  allow  predatory  levies  or 
assessments  by  anybody  npon  his  officials ;  but  he  used 
intrigue  and  coercion,  if  he  escaped  venality,  in  the  exercise 
of  the  appointing  power.  lie  caused  rotten  boroughs  to  be 
swept  away,  and  membere  to  be  sent  from  unrej)resented 
towns  ;  but  he  disfranchised  Catholics  and  Royahsts. 

In  his  own  way  he  gave  the  partisan  system  a  most  vigorous 
trial.  For  Cromwell  not  only  gave  office  and  titles,  confiscated 
lands,  and  brijt)es  of  other  sorts  to  his  favorites  and  to  those  he 
wished  to  conciliate,  but  he  added  a  religious  to  a  political  test 
for  office.  And  to  induce  othei*s  to  think  as  he  did,  he  placed 
the  creed  of  Congregationahsm  at  the  door  of  liis  conventions 
and  parliaments,  as  we  place  the  creed  of  our  party  at  the  doors 
of  the  post-offices  and  custom-houses.  He  not  only  nominated 
those  who  were  to  be  voted  for  as  members  of  a  Parliament, 
but  he  also  required  them  to  get  a  certificate  of  orthodoxy 
from  his  council  before  they  were  allowed  to  pass  the  doors 
of  the  House.  Being  substantially  in  the  jjosition  of  a  great 
party  leader,  he  did  not  see  any  reason  why  executive  and 
partisan  coercion  and  tests  of  opinion  might  not  be  applied 
to  legislative  officers,  and  to  those  in  the  army,  as  well  as  to 
officials  in  the  civil  service  proper.  And  can  we  deny  the 
logical  consistency  of  his  reasoning  ?  Those  of  ojjposing 
faiths  and  factions  were  as  proscriptive  and  as  vigorously 
demanded  that  political  spoils  should  be  made  the  reward  of 
victory  as  has  ever  been  the  case  in  the  most  ^'iolent  partisan 
contests  of  our  times.  Xo  partisan  manager  ever  used  patron- 
age more  skilfully  or  more  boldly  than  Cromwell.  And  he 
evidently  believed  it  would  strengthen  his  hold  upon  power 
and  perj^etuate  his  dynasty.  Of  one  of  his  Parliaments  it  is 
said  that  "  It  was  calculated  that  of  the  members  returned,  one 
half  were  bound  to  the  government  by  ties  of  profit  or  place, ' ' ' 
The  system  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  more  effective  than 
in  our  day  in  securing  model  men  for  the  customs  service. 
For  example,  one  of  his  statutes  recites  that  "  Carmen,  por- 

*  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  p.  576. 


56  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

ters,  watermen,  and  others  employed  on  the  quays,  .  .  . 
and  also  on  the  Eiver  Thames,  are  very  ordinarily  drunk,  and 
do  also  profane  and  blaspheme  the  holy  name  of  God  by  curs- 
ing and  swearing."  He  imnished  such  offenders,  however, 
with  a  vigor  that  we  have  never  reached  ;  for  he  gave  his 
customs  officers  the  powers  of  justices  of  the  peace,  with 
liberty  to  appoint  deputies,  each  of  whom,  without  special 
warrant,  might  arrest  any  of  these  drunkards  and  blas- 
phemers. 

N^either  Robert  Walpole  nor  General  Jackson  could  deny 
that  this  first  trial  of  the  partisan  system  was  in  able  hands. 
But  not  even  the  mig^ity  genius  of  Cromwell  was  able  through 
that  system  to  secure  for  himself  or  his  party  any  abiding 
position  or  official  gratitude.  As  he  went  on  under  it,  his 
power  steadily  declined.  Ui3on  his  decease,  his  followers 
melted  away.  Almost  without  a  struggle,  England  resumed 
allegiance  to  the  heir  to  her  throne,  utterly  base  and  unworthy 
as  he  was.  The  greatest  genius  for  government  England  ever 
produced  was  not  able,  through  the  most  skilful  use  of  pa- 
tronage, to  leave  gratitude  enough  behind  him  to  save  his 
own  bones  from  being  dragged  from  the  grave  and  exposed  on 
a  gibbet  to  the  jeers  of  the  royalists.  It  is  quite  probable 
that  in  the  intolerant  period  in  which  he  lived — when  un- 
popular opinions  took  men  to  the  block — when  men  fought 
about  religious  dogmas — when  even  slavery  stood  unchallenged 
by  the  popular  judgment — ^when  the  noblest  man  of  his  time 
was  executed  for  treason  in  violation  of  the  pledge  of  a  king 
— any  less  mercenary  and  partisan  system  than  his  would 
have  failed  of  support  ;  just  as  in  such  times  it  would  have 
been  imj^ossible  to  have  manned  fleets  or  filled  up  armies,  or 
to  have  led  either  successfully,  without  tlie  hope  and  the  en- 
joyment of  sacks,  pillages,  and  spoils — which  were  so  long 
believed  to  be  equally  justiable  and  inevitable  in  warfare — and 
from  the  terrible  reality  of  which  the  designation  of  ' '  spoils 
system,"  in  politics,  has  been  derived. 

It  cannot  therefore  be  said  that  Cromwell  really  broke  up 
the  spoils  system  as  a  whole,  but  only  in  part  ;  but  his  admin- 
istration caused  some  salutary  changes  in  public  opinion  upon 
the  subject,  as  well   as  in   the  modes   of  carrying  on  public 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  5» 

business.  The  number  of  those  who  thought  and  acted  boldly 
upon  political  questions  was  permanently  increased,  and  the 
old  system  lost  much  of  its  prestige,  which  it  never  regained. 
It  was  made  easier  for  Parliament  to  become  a  great  jjower 
at  the  expense  of  the  Crown  and  the  nobility.  The  Star 
Chamber,  the  Court  of  High  Commission,  and  the  arbitrary 
levy  of  taxes  were  at  an  end.  In  the  minds  of  a  great  portion, 
and  that  the  more  intelligent  portion,  of  the  middle  classes,  the 
awe  and  majesty  which  had  hedged  about  a  king,  and  made  a 
manly  scrutiny  of  his  doings  almost  imjDossible,  was  to  be  no 
more. 

The  great  political  contests  in  the  times  of  Charles  I.  and  of 
Cromwell  had  turned  upon  the  fundamental  principle  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  and  the  time  had  not  arrived  when  patriots 
and  statesmen  could  in  quiet  sit  down  to  the  study  of  the  prob- 
lem of  honest  and  economical  administration.  But  an  age  that 
could  produce  Hampden  and  Pym,  Eliot  and  Marvel,  Milton 
and  Vane,  and  could  place  them  in  Parliament  or  in  high 
offices  of  state,  gives  reason  to  expect  that  the  solid  virtues  and 
statesmanship  nourished  in  the  jjrivate  life  of  the  jDcople  will 
in  due  time  make  themselves  felt  in  the  execution  of  the  laws. 
In  the  wntings  of  Marvel,  wc  find  perhaps  tlie  first  systematic 
attack  upon  administrative  abuses  recorded  in  English  history  ; 
sinecurists,  placemen,  and  corrupt  and  subservient  court  fa- 
vorites being  so  roughly  handled  by  him  that  he  was  in  dan- 
ger of  assassination.  His  acts  were  in  the  spirit  of  his  words  ; 
and  at  a  time  when  he  was  so  poor  as  to  need  to  borrow  a 
guinea,  Cliarles  II.  tried  in  vain  to  bribe  him  with  a  £'1000. 
He  is  said  to  have  been  the  last  member  of  Parliament  who 
was  paid  for  his  services.  But  he  served  his  constitutents  with 
wonderful  ability  and  fidelity,  sending  them  a  daily  account 
of  the  proceedings  of  Parliament  in  letters  which  were 
thought  worthy  of  publication  even  after  the  elapsing  of  a 
century.  The  abolition  of  all  compensation  to  members  was 
admirably  calculated  and  was  probably  designed  to  keep  out 
of  Parliament  poor  men  like  Marvel,  who  were  genuine 
representatives  of  a  free  and  pure  sentiment  steadily  growing 
among  the  people.  Reformers  were  becoming  troublesome  in 
that  ase. 


68  CIVIL  SERVICE   DT   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

In  a  noble  speech  of  Sir  Jolin  Eliot,  made  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  support  of  the  ''  Petition  of  Right "  in  1628,  he 
used  this  courageous  and  prophetic  language  :  "  For  the  next, 
the  ignorance  and  corruption  of  our  ministers,  where  can  you 
miss  of  instances.  If  you  survey  the  court,  if  you  survey  the 
country  ;  if  the  Church,  if  the  city  be  examined  ;  if  you 
observe  the  bar,  if  the  bencli,  if  the  ports,  if  the  shipping,  if 
the  land,  if  the  seas — all  these  will  give  you  variety  of  proofs  ; 
and  that,  in  such  measure  and  proportion  as  shows  the  great- 
ness of  the  disease  to  he  such  that,  if  there  he  not  some  speedy 
appliance  of  remedy,  our  case  is  almost  desperate. ' '  And  he 
demanded  that  a  great  inquisition  ' '  should  be  speedily  made 
into  these  alarming  abuses. ' '  In  that  age  a  reformer  had  not  (as 
in  England  a  century  later,  or  now  in  this  country)  merely  to 
encounter  small  sarcasm  or  the  coarse  misrepresentation  of 
those  whom  he  might  scorn,  but  to  w^ithstand  the  despotic 
power  and  the  vindictive  passions  of  those  who  could  put  his 
liberty  and  life  in  peril,  as  Eliot  well  knew  and  soon  exjjeri- 
enced.  He  must  be  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Gladstone  says  he 
found  in  Zachary  Macauley,  who  "  expected  little  comfort  in 
this  world,  and  looked  for  his  reward  only  beyond  the  grave." 
The  inquisition  which  Eliot  demanded  was  not  made  ;  and 
his  bold  arraignment  of  the  government  caused  this  great 
patriot  and  reformer,  whom  Ilallam  declares  to  be  "  the  most 
illustrious  confessor  in  the  cause  of  liberty  whom  the  times  pro- 
duced," to  be  speedily  thrown  into  the  Tower  by  the  King's 
order,  where  his  health  giving  way,  after  great  suffering,  he 
died  in  1632.  These  facts  are  very  familiar  history  ;  but  it 
is  not  so  generally  noticed,  I  think,  how  greatly  the  adminis- 
trative corruption  and  incompetency  which,  if  not  removed 
by  "speedy  appliance  of  remedy,"  Eliot  declared  would 
make  the  condition  of  tlie  kingdom  "  desperate,"  had  to  do 
with  driving  the  people  to  arms  and  bringing  Charles  himself 
to  the  block  only  seventeen  years  later. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  life  and  character  of  the  noble  Puri- 
tan statesman,  Sir  Henry  Yane — wliom  Cromwell  and  Charles 
both  feared — and  in  the  fact  that  he  was  long  a  member  of 
Parliament  and  in  various  other  high  offices,  that  we  may  find 
the  best  evidence  of  the  great  strength  wliicli  the  liberal  and 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  59 

reforming  spirit  in  that  age  liad  attained.  He  had  the  dis- 
interestedness, the  courage,  and  the  constructive  capacity 
essential  to  a  great  administrative  reformer.  He  gave  up  to 
the  government  the  fees  of  his  office  as  Treasurer  of  the 
Navy,  which  amounted  to  £30,000  a  year  ;  and,  as  chairaian 
of  a  committee,  he  reported  a  bill  for  parliamentary  reform. 
But  he  was  too  far  in  advance  of  his  age  to  achieve  the 
important  reforms  he  desired.  It  was  on  account  of  his  great 
liberality  in  religion  and  politics  that  in  early  life  he  was 
opposed  by  Winthrop  and  was  defeated  as  a  candidate  for 
governor  in  the  Puritan  colony  of  Massachusetts.  As  a  leader 
of  the  Independents,  he  rendered  great  service  in  behalf  of 
Kew  England  ;  and,  befriending  Eoger  "Williams  after  he  fled 
from  official  tyranny  at  Salem,  it  was  the  vast  influence  of 
Vane's  character  that  procured  that  hberal  charter  for  the 
Khode  Island  colony,  which  was  as  much  in  advance  of  the 
general  spirit  of  the  !New  World  as  it  was  of  that  of 
the  Old.  The  King  feared  his  virtues.  Parliament  and  the 
great  leaders  were  too  base  to  save  him  ;  and  thirty  years 
after  the  death  of  Eliot,  Vane  was  beheaded.  So  great  in 
those  days  was  the  peril  of  being  a  patriot  and  a  reforaier. 


CHAPTEE  YI. 

PUBLIC  SEKVICE   UNDER    CHARLES    II.   AXD  JAMES    II. 

Corruption  gross  and  universal. — Bribery  of  members  of  Parliament  be- 
comes systematic. — Prostitution  of  the  appointing  power. — Parliament 
crowded  with  placemen. — Officials  make  great  fortunes. — The  King  him- 
self bribed.— Religious  tests  for  office. — Administration  as  imbecile  as  it  is 
venal. — Gerrymandering  boroughs  and  packing  Parliaments. — Removals, 
and  revocation  of  licenses,  on  account  of  opinions. — The  spoils  system  ex- 
tended to  the  army. — Noble  examples  of  courage  and  self-respect  on  the  pai  t 
of  officers  and  candidates. — Favoritism  and  corruption  unsuccessful. — The 
judiciary  invaded  by  the  spoils  system. — IIow  far  that  system  contributed 
to  the  fall  of  Jamea  II. 

It  is  not  in  tlie  reign  of  an  idler  and  a  sensualist  like  Charles 
II. ,  nor  in  that  of  a  corrupt  tyrant  and  bigot  like  James  II. ,  tliat 
we  are  to  look  for  reform  in  public  affairs.  But  these  reigns 
are  full  of  admonition  ;  and  they  afford  striking  illustrations  of 
the  extent  to  which  administrative  abuses  are  independent  of 
forms  of  government. 

The  surprise  expressed  by  some  historians  that  no  conditions 
in  favor  of  good  administration  were  exacted  on  the  restoration 
I  of  Charles  II.  would  perhaps  be  less  if  they  had  reflected  that 
1  the  privileged   classes  were  opposed  to  such  conditions,  and 
that  a    vast  army,   in  great   part  old  ofHcers  and  placemen, 
expected  to  become  officials  again,  and  to  enjoy  the  spoils  of 
'  the  old  system  revived.     Cromwell  had  established  no  method 
except  the  arbitrary  exercise  of  his  will  and  that  of  his  offi- 
cers for  official  selections.     Tliat  method,  in  the  liands  of  a 
monarch  like  Charles  II. ,  in  an  age  of  reaction  against  Puri- 
tanism as  well  as  all  morality  and  religion,  was  precisely  what 
the  most  corrupt  and  desperate  villains  in  politics,  and  all  the 
dependents  of  the  privileged    classes,   most  desired.     It  in- 
cluded all  the  essential  conditions  of  a  saturnalia  of  official  cor- 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  61 

mption,  and  therefore  facilitated  the  loss  of  no  small  portion 
of  what  had  been  gained  for  good  government  by  the  revolu- 
tion. Quite  as  unscrupulously  as  at  any  other  period,  public 
authority  in  the  hands  of  the  King,  his  favorites,  and  the  priv- 
ileged classes  was  now  used  in  every  grade  of  official  life  as  a 
prerogative  for  gain,  a  bribery  fund,  and  a  terror  ;  to  the  de- 
basing demands  of  which  every  one  seeking  to  enter  the  public 
service  must  prostrate  himself,  and  every  one  in  it  must  con- 
form. Xo  man  of  high  capacity  could  act  the  part  of  a  patriot 
or  a  reformer  who  had  not  the  stalwart  virtue  that  could  with- 
stand offers  the  most  tempting  and  threats  the  most  fonnid- 
able.  It  was  in  this  reign  that  the  systematic  buying  of  votes 
in  Parliament  began,  and  the  abuse  spread  with  great  rapidity. 
We  shall  never  reahze  how  vast  have  been  the  reforms  in 
Great  Britain,  without  looking  into  the  profound  dejiths  of 
the  corruption  and  villainy  which  followed  the  Restoration. 

On  two  jjoints  Charles  was  in  earnest  :  (1)  "  he  would  not 
have  a  company  of  fellows  '  looking  into  his  actions  and  exam- 
ining his  ministers  and  accounts  ;"  and  (2)  he  would  have  titles 
and  estates  for  his  mistresses,  and  would  use  the  appointing 
power  freely  to  gratify  his  passions,  please  his  court,  reward 
his  favorites,  punish  his  enemies — caring  as  little  as  the  most 
mercenary  partisan  demagogue  of  later  days  for  the  cost  of 
the  service  or  the  rights,  honor,  or  morals  of  the  people, 

"  The  public  service  "wsis  starved  that  courtiers  might  be  pam- 
pered." .  .  .  "The  personal  favorites  of  the  sovereign,  his 
ministers  and  the  creatures  of  those  ministers  were  gorged  with  public 
money."  .  .  .  "The  regular  salary  was,  however,  the  smallest 
part  of  the  gains  of  an  official  man  of  that  age.  From  the  nobleman 
who  held  the  white  staff  and  the  great  seal  down  to  the  humblest  tide 
waiter  and  ganger,  what  would  now  be  called  gross  corruption  was 
practiced  without  disguise  and  without  reproach.  Titles,  places,  com- 
missions, pardons  were  daily  sold  in  market  overt  by  the  great  dignita- 
ries of  the  realm  ;  and  every  clerk  in  every  department  imitated,  to 
the  best  of  his  power,  the  evil  example.  Whitehall,  when  he  dwelt 
there,  was  a  focus  of  political  intrigue  and  fasliionable  gaycty." 

'  He  meant  by  "  fellows"  members  of  Parliament,  and  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  members  of  Parliament  had  not  yet  got  so  much  patronage  as  to 
be  involved  in  the  corruption  of  the  times. 
5 


62  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

"  Whoever  could  make  himself  agreeable  to  the  prince  or  could 
secure  the  good  offices  of  the  ministers,  might  hope  to  rise  in  the 
world  without  rendering  any  service  to  the  government,  without  even 
being  known  by  sight  to  any  Minister  of  State.  This  courtier  got  a 
frigate,  and  that  a  company  ;  the  third  the  pardon  of  a  rich  offender; 
a  fourth  a  lease  of  Crown  land  on  easy  terms. ' ' 

' '  If  the  King  notified  his  pleasure  that  a  briefless  favorite  should 
be  made  a  judge  or  that  a  libertine  favorite  should  be  made  a  peer, 
the  gravest  counsellors,  after  a  little  mumiurlng,  submitted. ' ' ' 

"  The  immense  gain  of  official  men  moved  envy  and  indignation. 
Here  a  gentleman  was  paid  to  do  nothing.  There  many  gentlemen 
Avere  paid  to  do  what  would  be  better  done  by  one. "  .  .  .  "  The 
house  swarmed  with  placemen  of  all  kinds — Lords  of  the  Treasury, 
Lords  of  the  Admiralty,  Commissioners  of  Customs,  Commissioners 
of  Excise,  Commissioners  of  Prizes,  Tellers,  Auditors,  Receivers, 
Paymasters,  Officers  of  the  Mint,  Officers  of  the  Household,  Colonels 
of  Regiments,  Captains  of  Men-of-war,  Governors  of  Forts." 

Parliament  made  no  serious  attempt  to  reform  in  this 
reign. 

*'  There  was  great  servility  and  no  small  amount  of  corruption 
among  its  members.  A  minister  of  Charles  II.  declared  that  to  pocket 
the  bribes,  members  flocked  around  him  like  so  many  jackdaws  for 
cheese."  " 

The  King  and  the  court  actually  became  pensionaries  of  great  cor- 
porations, and  franchises  and  titles  were  bartered  for  money.  Childs, 
the  Chairman  of  the  India  Company,  bribed  Charles  II.  with  a  pres- 
ent of  10,000  guineas  from  its  funds,  and  James  II.  with  the  same 
amount. 

"  All  who  could  help  or  hurt  at  court,  ministers,  mistresses,  priests, 
were  kept  in  good  humor  by  presents  of  shawls  and  silks,  bird's-nests 
and  attar  of  roses,  bulses  of  diamonds  and  bags  of  guineas. 
James  ordered  his  seal  to  be  set  to  a  new  charter."  ' 

Imitating  Cromwell,  Parliament  in  tliis  reign  applied  a  theo- 
logical as  well  as  a  political  test  to  office.  The  Test  Act  re- 
quired, in  addition  to  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  supremacy, 

'  Macauley's  History,  vol.  i. ,  p.  303  and  359. 

"  Pal.syrave's  Lectures  on  House  of  Commons,  1877. 

'  History,  vol.  vi.,  p.  249. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN".  63 

that  every  one  in  the  civil  and  mihtary  employment  of  the 
State  sliould  make  a  declaration  against  transubstantiation  and 
also  partake  of  the  sacrament  according  to  the  rites  of  the 
Church  of  England.     This  theory  of  strengthening  a  creed  in 
religion  may  seem  very  absurd  at  first  blush  ;  but  are  we  cer- 
tain that  it  cannot  be  defended  upon  every  ground  upon  which  / 
parties  have,  in  our  times,  justified  a  test  of  political  faith  for  \^ 
every  petty  office  ?     IN'ot  having  practised  the  political  art  of    ' 
propagating  religion  in  that  way,  we  call  it  opj)ression  and 
have  little  faith  in  its  success. 

From  Charles  II.  to  James  II.  the  short  step  is  downward 
from  one  corrapt  administration  that  was  graceful  and  cautious 
to  another  that  was  brutal  and  reckless. 

James  II.  cannot  be  said  to  have  brought  any  new  system 
into  the  public  service  ;  but  he  combined  together  the  worst 
elements  of  the  despotic  spoils  system  and  the  partisan  spoils 
system,  to  both  of  which  he  added  a  taint  of  his  own  character. 
Far  more  arbitrary  than  Charles  I.,  and  quite  as  corrupt  as  , 
Charles  II.,  he  imitated  Cromwell,  without  his  respect  for  1 
merit,  in  the  enforcement  of  a  theological  test  in  politics,  and 
made  a  sort  of  political  party  out  of  Catholic  sympathizers. 
He  had  no  higher  conception  of  the  appointing  power  tlian  to 
make  it  the  instrument  of  his  vengeance,  his  vanity,  his  lust, 
and  his  bigoted  ambition.  In  the  true  spirit  of  the  spoils  sys- 
tem, of  which  he  was  the  head,  he  became  a  pensionary  of  the 
King  of  France,  pocketing  the  gold  of  that  country  as  a  con- 
dition of  betraying  his  own. 

Jeffreys,  his  favorite  judge,  ordered  hanging  and  judicially 
levied  blackmail  as  boldly  as  ever  Barnard,  under  his  view  of 
the  spoils  system,  granted  illegal  injunctions,  or  any  of  his 
associates  plundered  the  public  treasury.  The  Queen  and  the 
King's  favorites  collected  commissions  on  fines  and  forfeitures 
imposed  by  the  King  as  freely  as  ever  the  wife  of  a  republican 
secretary  made  a  levy  upon  army  posts,  or  the  partisan  leaders 
in  a  republic  ever  levied  percentages  on  salaries  fixed  by  C(jn-  J 
gress. 

"  The  naval  administration  moved  the  contempt  of  men  acquainted 
with  the  dock-yards  of  France  and  Holland. "     .     .     .     In  the  navy 


64:  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

alone  James  seems  to  have  made  some  reforms.  ' '  The  military  ad- 
ministration Avas  worse.  The  courtiers  took  bribes  from  the  colonels, 
the  colonels  cheated  the  soldiers  ;  the  commissaries  sent  in  long  bills 
for  what  they  had  never  furnished.  Keepers  of  arsenals  sold  the 
stores  and  pocketed  the  price.  From  the  time  of  the  Restoration  to 
the  time  of  the  Revolution,  neglect  and  fraud  had  been  almost  con- 
stantly impairing  the  efficiency  of  every  department  of  the  govern- 
ment. Honors  and  public  trusts,  peerages,  baronetcies,  regiments, 
frigates,  embassies,  governments,  commissionerships,  leases  of  Crown 
lands,  contracts  for  clothing,  for  provisions,  for  ammunition,  pardons 
for  murder,  for  robbery,  for  arson,  were  sold  at  Whitehall,  scarcely 
less  openly  than  asparagus  at  Covent  Garden,  or  herrings  at  Billings- 
gate. Brokers  had  been  incessantly  plying  for  customers  in  the  pur- 
lieus of  the  court  ;  and  of  these  brokers  the  most  successful  had  been, 
in  the  days  of  Charles,  the  harlots,  and  in  the  days  of  James,  the 
priests.  From  the  palace,  which  was  the  chief  seat  of  this  pesti- 
lence, the  taint  had  diffused  itself  through  every  office  and  every  rank 
in  every  office,  and  had  everywhere  produced  feebleness  and  disor- 
ganization." ^ 

It  is  wortliy  of  notice  in  what  small  measure  tlie  contempora- 
ries of  these  events  comprehended  liow  j^erilous  administrative 
corruption  is  to  a  nation's  peace  and  strengtli.  At  that  time 
little  importance  was  attached  to  the  modes  of  appointing 
officers,  the  methods  of  doing  the  public  business,  or  to  charac- 
ter in  public  places.  It  is  only  since  administration  has  been 
made  a  sort  of  science  by  English  statesmen,  that  they  have 
looked  back  and  got  a  clear  view  of  the  fearful  perils  and  costs 
in  wliicli  official  incapacity  and  dishonesty  had  involved  the 
nation. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  the  partisan  (and  generally  supposed 
to  be  modern)  theory  of  manipulating  election  districts,  pack- 
ing legislatures,  or  supporting  the  party  right  or  wrong. 

"  Returning  officers  [says  Macaulay]  were  appointed  who  would 
avail  themselves  of  the  slightest  pretences  to  declare  the  King's  friends 
duly  elected.  Every  placeman,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  must 
be  made  to  understand,  if  he  Avished  to  retain  his  office,  that  he  must 
at  this  juncture  support  the  Throne  by  his  vote  and  interest.     The 

'  History,  vol.  iv.,  p.  61  and  62, 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  65 

higli  commission  in  the  meanwhile  would  keep  its  eye  upon  the  clergy. 
The  boroughs,  which  had  just  been  remodelled  to  serve  one  turn,  might 
be  modelled  to  serve  another  turn.  By  such  means  the  King  hoped  to 
obtain  a    majority  in    the   House  of  Commons." 

Here  is  Gerrymandering,  complete,  from  the  brain  of  a 
royal  bigot  and  despot,  put  in  actual  practice,  three  quarters 
of  a  century  before  Elbridge  Gerry  oi-  this  republic  was  bom  ; 
and  it  is  but  another  instance  of  old  abuses  which  so  many 
suppose  to  be  original  in  a  republic,  and  not  a  few  palliate  as 
inevitable  in  our  politics,  if,  indeed,  they  are  not  held  to  be  a 
very  justifiable  means  of  partisan  success. 

Under  James  II.  also,  the  champions  of  the  spoils  and  pat- 
ronage system  as  vigorously  denied  the  right  of  a  member  of  \ 
Parliament,  a  judge,  a  magistrate,  a  bishop,  or  even  a  colonel,  | 
to  hold  political  opinions  different  from  those  of  his  chief,  as  j 
the  advocates  of  that  system  now  dispute  the  right  of  a  1 
ganger,  a  book-keeper,  a  collector,  or  a  rural  postmaster,  to  ; 
such  liberty  of  opinion.  King  James  wanted  a  parliament  to 
suit  himself ;  and,  like  Cromwell,  seeing  no  reason  why 
members  of  Parliament,  as  well  as  those  holding  office  in  the 
executive  departments,  should  not  be  required  to  be  of  his 
way  of  thinking,  he  acted  accordingly.  The  same  author 
says  :  "  King  James  also  determined  to  revise  the  Commis- 
sions of  Peace  and  Lieutenancy,  and  to  keep  in  power  and  to 
retain  in  public  employment  only  such  gentlemen  as  should  be 
disposed  to  support  his  policy."  Here  also  Jackson  has  small 
claims  to  originality,  and  was  greatly  outdone  in  his  own  line  of 
fame  by  James  II.  The  King  j3ursued  a  similar  couree  in  regard 
to  municipal  corporations  ;  threatening  the  revocation  of 
charters  if  the  suj^port  of  his  policy  was  not  pledged.  In  case 
of  the  attempted  coercion  of  the  Lieutenants,  we  find  perhaps 
the  fii-st  plain  utterance — and,  if  not  the  first,  certainly  one  of 
the  most  striking  examples — of  that  manly,  self-respecting 
feeling  in  the  official  life  of  England,  which,  contrary  to  the 
common  belief,  I  fear  that  even  tlie  independent  spirit  of 
republican  officials  does  not  always  surpass.  For  the  histo- 
rian adds  that  "  half  the  Lieutenants  of  England  peremptorily 
refused  to  stoop  to  the  odious  service  which  was  required  of 
them."     .     .     .     "  They  were  immediately  dismissed. " 


60  CIVIL  SERVICE    IN  GEEAT  BRITAIN". 

Similar  attempts  on  magistrates  and  candidates  for  Parliament 
met  with  a  resistance  equally  honorable  and  equally  success- 
ful.    "  Arguments,  promises,  threats  were  tried  in  vain. 
The  candidates  and  magistrates  of  four  counties  unanimously 
refused  to  fetter  themselves  by  the  pledge  which  the  King  de- 
manded of  them."     In  parts  of  the  kingdom,  where  the  King 
had  great  hopes,  out  of  sixty  only  seven  made  so  much  as  a 
qualified  promise  to  support  the  royal  policy.     The  candidates 
for  Parliament  in  1687  framed  and  signed  a  j)aper,  and  sent  it 
to  the  King,  which  is  so  just  and  manly  that  legislators  of  the 
present  day,  from   whom  mercenary  caucuses   or  the   great 
chiefs  of  politics  attempt  to  extort  pledges,  could  hardly  do 
better  than  to   adopt  it,  if  indeed  they  have  the  courage. 
These  are  the  material  parts  :  "  As  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons,   should  I  have  the  honor  of  a  seat  there,  I  shall 
think  it  ray  duty  carefully  to  weigh  such  reasons  as  may  be 
adduced  in  debate  for  and  against  a  bill,     .     .     .     and  then 
to  vote  according  to  my  conscientious  convictions."     . 
' '  As  an  elector,  I  shall  give  my  support  to  candidates  whose 
notions  of  the  duty  of  a  rej)resentative  agree  with  my  own." 
PerhajDS  clerks  in  the  departments,  when  coerced  as  to  his  vote 
by  members  of  Congress,  could  not  do  better  than  refer  their 
persecutors  to  this  dignified  language  of  their  political   ances- 
tors, addressed  to  King  James  II.     For  the  progress  made  in 
civil  liberty  since  his  reign  is  well  illustrated  in  the  fact  that  a 
large  portion  of  the  members  of  Parliament  then  sustained 
relations  to  the  Crown  quite  as  dependent  as  those  our  ordinary 
clerks  now  sustain  to  members  of  Congress.     The  elections 
went  against  the  King  and  in  favor  of  those  who  thus  stood  on 
princij^le  and  duty,  but  had  no  patronage.     A  motion  having 
been  made  to  inquire  into  the  abuses  in  the  elections,  King 
James   answered   it    in   the   same  way  that  General  Jackson 
answered  those  who  opposed  his  election  :  "  The  members  who 
had  voted  against  the  court  were  dismissed  from  the  public 
service."     Charles  Fox  quitted  the  pay  ofiice  ;  the  Bishop  of 
London  ceased  to  be  Dean  of  the  Poyal  Chapel,  and  so  on  down 
the  official  list.     In  one  particular  the  King  proposed  to  carry 
the  theory  of  the  spoils  system  and  the  doctrine  of  passive 
obedience  to  those  in  authority  further,  perhaps,  than  any  of 
its  advocates  have  proposed  to  carry  it  in  our  days,  however 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  67 

much  they  may  have  in  secret  jjractice  followed  King  James' 
precedent.  He  insisted  tliat  none  but  those  who  apj^roved  his 
policy  should  have  a  license  for  selling  wine,  beer,  or  coffee  ; 
not  seeing  any  good  reason,  I  suj^pose,  why  the  faithful  con- 
stable or  magistrate,  who  might  be  called  on  to  deal  with  an 
offending  coffee-stand  or  beer-cellar,  should,  any  more  than 
the  voter  (who  had  got  the  favor  of  a  license  he  had  broken) 
be  placed  under  a  pledge  to  support  those  who  gave  him  his 
privileges. 

"Every  battered  old  cavaher  (says  Macaiilay)  who,  in  re- 
turn for  blood  and  lands  lost  in  the  royal  cause,  had  obtained 
some  small  ])lace  under  the  Keeper  of  the  Wardrobe  or  the 
Master  of  the  Harriers,  was  called  up  to  choose  between  the 
King  and  the  Church.  The  Commissioners  of  Customs  and 
Excise  were  ordered  to  attend  his  Majesty  at  the  Treasury. 
There  he  demanded  from  them  a  promise  to  support  his  poli- 
cy, and  directed  them  to  require  a  similar  promise  from  all 
their  subordinates.  One  custom-house  officer  notified  his  sub- 
mission to  the  royal  will  in  a  way  which  excited  both  merri- 
ment and  compassion.  'I  have,'  he  said,  'fourteen  reasons 
for  obeying  his  Majesty's  command  :  a  wife  and  thirteen 
young  children.'  " 

That  system  was  all  the  more  terrible  in  the  King's  hands, 
because  it  was  carried  to  its  logical  results  of  allowing  him  to 
remove,  and  he  did  remove,  judges  and  justices  at  will,  as  he 
did  all  other  officers.  ' '  The  packed  judges  of  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  gave,  as  a  matter  of  course,  judgment  in  favor 
of  the  Crown."  '  Wielding  this  all-pervading  power,  he  used 
it  everywhere,  as  an  unscrupulous  party  majority  might  use  it, 
and  his  strong  hand  was  felt  in  every  local  election.  "  Its 
effect  was  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the  Crown  the  nomination 
of  a  large  portion  of  the  membei-s  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  also  to  give  its  adherents  the  power  of  domineering  in  all 
the  daily  detail  of  local  municipal  politics.  The  court  put  in 
force  every  artifice  and  used  injustice  and  violence  of  the 
gravest  kind  throughout  England  to  manage  the  elections. 
.  .  .  An  eminently  servile  House  of  Connnons  was  the 
result."'  ' 

'  Creasy  on  the  English  Const. ,  p.  308. 

'  Creasy  on  the  English  Const.,  pp.  308  and  310. 


68  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN. 

I  liardly  need  say  that  all  tliis  use  of  ]3atronage  and  spoilS) 
of  threats  and  solicitation,  alike  failed  to  increase  the  power 
of  King  James.  The  feeling  of  independence  and  the  sense 
of  public  duty,  the  patriotism  and  the  manhood,  among  the 
people  from  whom  we  sprung,  were,  under  an  arbitrary  mon- 
arch near  two  centuries  ago,  too  great  and  fearless  to  submit 
to  such  abuses.  They  saw  that  one  of  two  results  nmst  soon 
happen — either  that  all  the  justice  and  liberty  enjoyed  by  Eng- 
lishmen must  be  lost  in  an  intolerable  despotism,  or  that  the 
j)rostitution  of  official  aiTthority  must  be  arrested.  The  world 
knows  how  England  decided  that  issue — what  angry  cries  hur- 
ried Jeffreys  to  the  Tower — how  a  nation,  indignant,  drove 
its  King  from  its  soil  and  called  a  foreign  prince  to  the  throne. 
James,  his  tyranny  and  his  civil  service  system  fell  together^ 
never  more  to  be  tolerated  in  England. 

It  may  be  difficult  to  decide  in  what  measure  the  direct 
causes  of  these  great  events  had  their  origin  in  any  positive 
usurpation  on  the  part  of  Charles  II.  and  James  II.,  or  in 
what  measure  they  may  be  traced  back  to  the  extravagance 
and  corruption,  the  annoyance,  humiliation,  and  oppression, 
the  royal  necessities  and  presumj)tion,  the  pride  of  birth  and 
the  tyranny  of  official  station  These  were  the  natural  out- 
growth of  that  false  and  vicious  system  of  public  administra- 
tion which,  w^hile  repudiating  all  moral  standards  and  all 
official  responsibility,  had  for  centuries  flouted  and  scorned 
high  character  and  capacity  in  the  common  life  of  the 
nation.  That  system  treated  the  bestowal  of  the  highest 
offices,  and  the  management  of  what  is  grandest  in  the 
executive  affairs  of  a  nation,  as  royal  and  aristocratic  per- 
quisites and  monopolies  to  be  dispensed  as  a  favor  or  bar- 
gained for  money  and  influence.  But  witliout  attempting 
any  estimate  on  the  subject,  no  one  can  fail  now  to  see,  as 
Marvel,  Eliot  and  Vane  and  other  great  statesmen  had  fore- 
seen, that  it  was  necessary  that  this  system  should  be  arrested, 
or  liberty,  intelligence,  and  public  virtue,  in  England,  would 
be  dwarfed  forever. 


CHAPTER  YII. 

THE   NEW    SYSTEM   OF    ADMINISTRATION   UNDER   WILLIAM    lU. 

Low  character  and  capacity  of  those  he  found  in  office. — The  Bill  of 
Rights. — Executive  officers  excluded  from  Parliament. — Tenure  of  judges 
to  be  during  good  behavior. — Third  series  of  Civil  Service  Rules. — Experi- 
ment of  opposing  leaders  for  executive  advisers  and  its  failure. — Factions 
lead  politics. — Origin  of  British  Cabinet. — Party  government  originated  in 
1693. — Its  significance. — Partisan  system  of  office  developed. — Its  meaning. 
— Power  of  Parliament  increased. — The  British  Cabinet  compared  with  that 
of  the  United  States. — Power  of  appointment  and  removal  and  conditions 
of  administration  similar  in  the  two  countries. — William  as  a  reformer. — 
Bribery  increases  with  the  increased  authority  of  Parliament. — Relation  of 
party  government  to  the  partisan  system  of  appointments. 

The  vicious  methods  of  selecting  officei-s,  and  tlie  corrup- 
tions wliicli  had  existed  in  adminstration,  during  tlie  last  two 
reigns,  naturally  debased  the  character  of  tliose  in  official  life. 
When  Wilham,  Prince  of  Orange,  came  to  the  throne  in 
1688,  the  official  life  of  England  was  at  the  lowest  stage  of 
degradation  it  had  ever  reached.  With  rare  excejition,  all 
those  in  office  and  all  those  connected  with  the  court  or  pol- 
itics were  seething  sources  of  corruption.  The  very  fact  of  a 
man  being  a  public  officer  or  a  politician  brought  a  suspicion 
upon  his  integrity  and  his  manhood. 

The  same  causes  which  had  kept  men  of  purity  and  capacity 
from  official  places  had  also  filled  them  to  overflowing  with 
venal  minions  of  the  court,  decayed  stewards  of  lords  and 
bishops,  and  the  servile  henchmen  of  the  privileged  classes 
generally.  Self-respecting  manhood  had  no  chances,  and  sin- 
ecurists  drained  the  public  treasury.  William  could  never  be 
certain  that  any  of  those  he  fomid  in  office  would  be  either  faith- 
ful or  competent  in  an  emergency.  "  The  standard  of  honor 
and  virtue  among  our  public  men  was,  during  his  reign,  at  the 


70  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

very  lowest  point.  His  jDredecessors  had  bequeathed  to  liim  a 
court  foul  with  all  the  vices  of  the  Restoration,  a  court  swarm- 
ing with  sycophants,  who  were  ready,  on  tiie  first  turn  of 
fortune,  to  abandon  him,  as  they  had  abandoned  his  uncle. 
Here  and  there,  lost  in  the  ignoble  crowd,  was  to  be  found  a 
man  of  true  integrity  and  public  spirit. ' '  * 

It  is  at  this  time,  and  at  such  ^Drofound  depths  of  ofiicial 
degradation,  that  we  may  begin  to  trace  the  motions  of  those 
purer  currents  that  led  slowly  on  to  great  improvements. 
From  the  beginning,  the  movement  for  reform  was  republican 
in  its  spirit — a  struggle  in  which  the  privileged  classes  con- 
tended for  their  old  monopoly,  and  the  unprivileged  classes  for 
equal  chances  to  enter  the  service  of  their  country. 

"  The  politicians  of  the  Upper  House  were  deeply  tainted  with  the 
treachery  and  duplicity  common  to  most  English  statesmen  between 
the  Restoration  and  the  American  Revolution.  Most  of  the  hills  for 
preventing  corrupt  influence  in  the  Commons  .  .  .  Avere  crushed 
by  the  influence  of  ministers  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  country 
was  long  seriously  burdened,  and  some  of  the  professions  were  system- 
atically degraded,  in  order  to  furnish  lucrative  posts  for  the  younger 
members  of  the  aristocratic  families  ;  and  the  representative  character 
of  the  Lower  House  was  so  utterly  prevented  by  the  multiplication  of 
nomination  boroughs,  in  the  hands  of  the  peers,  that  a  storm  of  in- 
dignation was  at  last  raised,  which  shook  the  very  pillars  of  the  con- 
stitution.'"' 

In  his  own  jDerson,  the  King  brought  a  purer  moral  tone  as 
well  as  habits  of  business  to  his  high  station.  The  English 
l^eople  had  gained  wisdom  since  they  called  Charles  II.  to  the 
throne  without  guaranties  for  good  administration.  They 
therefore,  at  the  accession  of  William,  imposed  some  con- 
ditions upon  the  crown  ;  but  the  low  state  of  morals  in  polit- 
ical circles  allowed  these  conditions  to  be  far  less  stringent 
than  the  public  safety  required.  Still  some  of  them  liave  a 
vital  bearing  upon  our  system.  They  clearly  show  the  in- 
creased power  of  the  liiglier  sentiments.     It  was  a  part  of  the 

'  Macaulay's  History,  vol.  iv.,  p.  GO. 

"  Lecky's  England  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  vol.  i.,  pp.  198  and  199. 


CIVIL   SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  71 

great  results  of  this  revolution  to  limit  the  power  of  the  Cro-wn 
and  to  increase  that  of  Parliament  and  of  the  higher  public 
opinion.  In  order  to  prevent  the  King  and  the  anny  of  civil 
officers  from  everywhere  controlling  elections,  as  they  had 
formerly  done,  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  1688  declared  that  "  elec- 
tions of  members  of  Parhament  ought  to  be  free."  In  the 
same  spirit  it  was  provided,  in  the  Act  of  Settlement  of  the 
next  year,  ' '  that  no  person  who  has  an  office  and  place  of 
profit  under  the  King,  or  receives  a  pension  from  the  Crown, 
shall  be  capable  of  serving  as  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons;"*  and  also,  ''that  judges'  commissions  shall  be 
made  qumndieu  se  hene  gessarint,  and  their  salaries  ascertained 
and  established  ;  but  upon  the  address  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament  it  may  be  lawful  to  remove  them. ' '  And  I  may 
anticipate  a  little  by  adding  that  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign 
of  George  III.  (1760)'  it  was  enacted  that  the  judges  should 
continue  to  hold  their  offices  notwithstanding  the  demise  of 
the  King,  and  that  they  should  continue  to  enjoy  their  salaries 
during  their  terms,  which  shall  be  "  during  good  behavior."  \ 
Taken  together,  these  j)rovisionp  may  be  designated  as ' 
another  (a  third)  series  of  ' '  Civil  Service  Pules. ' '  They 
broadly  break  into  the  old  spoils  system  in  various  ways,  but 
more  esjjecially  by  raising  tlie  judiciary  above  executive 
interference.  The  former  rules  (I  have  referred  to)  related 
mainly  to  qualifications  for  appointment  ;  here,  however,  for 
the  first  time,  we  find  independence  secured  in  the  proper  dis- 
charge of  duty  while  in  office.  These  precedents  (so  far  as 
they  relate  to  the  judiciary)  we  have  followed  ;  for  they  are 
the  well-known  originals  of  our  constitutional  provisions  that 
judges  "shall  hold  their  offices  during  good  behavior,"  and 
shall  not  have  their  compensation  diminished  during  their  con- 
tinuance in  office.  •  But  the  difference  in  the  two  countries  has 
been  that,  while  in  England  the  same  tenure  has  been  grad- 
ually extended  to  nearly  the  whole  civil  service,  we  have,  more 


'  Such  a  law  would  of  course  have  excluded  memhers  of  tlie  Cabinet 
from  membership  of  either  House  of  Parliament,  and  thus  have  disastrously 
changed  the  whole  balance  of  the  executive  system  of  Great  Britain. 

"  Statutes  George  III.,  chap.  23. 


72  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

1   especially  in  later  years,  confined  it  to  judges  alone,'     This 
'    provision  of  the  Act  of  Settlement,  however,  was  too  much 
for  the  disinterestedness  of  the  members  of  the  then  existing 
Parliament,  but  was  not  beyond  that  which  they  were  willing 
to  demand  of  their  successors  ;  and  so  they  speedily  changed 
the  provision  to  the  effect  that  it  should  only  apply  to  mem- 
bers elected  after  1705  ;  but  even  that  j^rovision  was  modified. 
In  the  mean  time,  however,  an  act  passed  in  1694,  for  a  new 
i    revenue  board  for  stamp  duties,  provided  that  its  members 
1   should  not  have  seats  in  Parliament  ;  and  this,  Mr.   Hallam 
I  says,  is  the  first  exclusion  from  membership  of  that  body  on 
account  of  employment.     A  law  of  1699  extended  the  exclu- 
i  sion  to  various  other  excise  ofiicers.     It  will  be  perceived  that 
these  are  material  limitations  of  the  opportunities  of  official 
tyranny  under  the  old  spoils  system  ;  and  it  is  a  good  illustra- 
tion of  the  survival  of  parts  of  that  system  that  we  now  often 
see  our  State  legislatures  protecting  themselves  against  execu- 
tive officers,  as  the  British  Parliament  did  near  two  centuries 
ago,  by  excluding  them  from  membership. 

But  we  have  never  yet,  in  our  federal  legislation  at  least, 
acted  upon  the  salutary  precedent  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  by 
preventing  such  officers  interfering  with  the  freedom  of  elec- 
tions. We  have,  on  the  contrary,  so  tamely  surrendered  our- 
selves to  official  dictation,  that  a  late  mild  attempt  of  the  Pres- 
ident to  vindicate  such  freedom  at  elections  was  denounced  by 
partisan  leaders  as  an  interference  with  the  just  liberty  of 
officials — as  if  the  exertion  of  official  authority  over  elections, 
rather  than  freedom  on  the  j^art  of  the  private  citizen  in  tak- 
ij  j  ing  part  in  them,  was  the  right  to  be  protected. 

During  the  first  five  years  of  William's  reign  his  jjosition 

was  j)eculiar.     Strictly  speaking,  there  were  no  parties,  but 

1 1    factions  ;  and  yet  the  power  of  the  King  was  not  despotic. 

^     Despotism  was  at  an  end,  but  neither  parliamentary  nor  party 

'  We  have  not,  in  the  States,  as  is  well  known,  generally  maintained  that 
tenure  even  for  judges,  but  have  elected  them  for  short  terms.  The  tend- 
ency now  is  toward  a  longer  tenure  ;  New  York,  for  example,  has  lately 
changed  her  judicial  tenure  from  eight  to  fourteen  years.  Our  federal  stat- 
utes go  the  full  length  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  in  excluding  executive  officers 
from  the  legislature. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  73 

government  had  begun.  *  The  condition  was  that  of  rival  no- 
blemen and  nnscrupulous  factions  among  the  higlier  classes 
contending  for  the  favor  of  the  King  and  the  control  of  pa- 
tronage. Parliament  had  become  stronger  and  more  ambitious 
than  ever  before,  but  it  had  then  secured  but  little  patronage. 
The  King,  seeking  to  harmonize  contending  factions,  took 
opposing  elements  into  his  council.  Being  a  sovereign  of 
commanding  ability  and  great  experience  in  administration,  he 
seems  to  have  thought  that  he  could  bend  rival  factions  to  his 
policy  ;  or  at  least  that  he  could  make  a  strong  administration 
by  pursuing  a  middle  course.  He  gave  the  experiment  a  thor- 
ough trial  during  five  years.  So  far  as  royal  authority  had, 
under  the  Stuarts,  not  been  absolute,  it  had  been  shared  by 
the  Privy  Council,  a  large  body,  of  which  the  kings  had  really 
consulted  only  a  small  number,  and  those  of  course  royal  fa- 
vorites. William  seems  to  have  become  convinced,  after  five 
years'  experience,  that  neither  any  large  body,  nor  any  body 
though  not  large,  which  contained  antagonistic  elements,  could 
successfully  exercise  executive  power. 

"  It  would  cause  infinite  delay  and  embarrassment  in  governing  the 
kingdom."  "  Want  of  harmony  caused  want  of  vigor."''  "Some 
of  the  most  serious  difficulties  of  his  situation  were  caused  by  the 
conduct  of  the  ministers  on  whom  he  was  forced  to  rely.  There 
was  indeed  no  want  of  ability  among  his  chief  councillors,  but  one 
half  of  their  ability  was  employed  in  counteracting  the  other  half. 
"The  two  Secretaries  of  State  were  constantly  laboring  to 
draw  their  masters  in  diametrically  opposite  directions. ' ' ' 

Such  a  state  of  things  could  not  be  long  endured.  Unity  of 
policy  was  found  to  be  as,  essential  as  unity  of  action.  In 
short,  the  King's  experiment  of  reconciliation  and  harmony 
had  failed  utterly.  A  remedy  for  the  difiiculty  was  proposed 
by  Sunderland  and  approved  by  William,  in  1693  ;  wliich  was 
this  :  that  a  small  number,  since  called  the  "  Cabinet,"  or  the 

'  Hallam  says  that  political  factions  were  so  violent  in  the  early  part  of 
William's  reign,  that  they  were  "  regardless  of  all  the  decencies  of  political 
lying." 

'  Creasy  on  the  English  Constitution,  p.  332. 

'  Macaulay's  History,  vol.  iv.,  pp.  63-70  ;  and  vol.  vii.,  pp.  210-256. 


74  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

"  Cabinet  Council,"  sliould  be  selected  from  the  party  in  ma- 
jority in  Parliament,  under  whose  advice  the  King  should  carry 
on  the  government,  leaving  to  the  ancient  Privy  Council  only 
a  small  portion  of  its  original  authority.  The  Cabinet  soon 
discontinued  the  practice  it  first  adopted  of  consulting  the 
Privy  Council  at  all.  The  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  called 
"Cabinet  Ministers."  Yet  this  "Cabinet,"  which  keeps  no 
records,  yet  controls  the  highest  affairs  of  a  vast  empire,  which 
is  the  original  upon  which  our  Cabinet  is  modelled  and  the 
embodiment  of  what  all  the  world  has  come  to  designate  as 
parliamentary  government,  is  not,  nor  are  its  members,  named 
in  any  law  or  known  to  the  English  Constitution. ' 

This  important  change  in  the  method  of  exercising  execu- 
tive authority  marks — or  perhaps,  I  might  say,  was  in  itself — 
the  origin  of  political  'parties  in  the  modem  sense,  and  of 
party  government  in  England,  and,  indeed,  in  the  world. 
This  change,  so  pregnant  of  vast  consequences  in  every  way, 
enormously  increased  the  power  of  Parliament  over  the  civil 
service  ;  since  from  its  majority  the  members  of  the  Cabinet 
were  to  be  taken,  and  upon  their  failure  to  receive  the  support 
of  that  majority  they  were,  according  to  the  new  theory,  to 
resign.  It  tended  greatly  to  secure  harmony  and  vigor  in  the 
administration,  wliich  at  all  times  (apparently  at  least)  repre- 
sented the  majority  of  the  nation.  It  hardly  need  be  added 
that  it  also  developed  two  great  parties,  each  of  which  strug- 
gled for  that  majority  which  would  give  the  victor  the  control 
not  only  of  all  legislation,  but  of  all  administration.  There 
being  no  separate  States  to  share  the  power  and  dignity  of 
government,  the  central  party  majority  was  really  made  (in  a 
more  absolute  sense  than  has  ever  been  the  fact  in  this  country) 
supreme  throughout  the  domain  of  politics.  Such  vast  power, 
as  well  as  all  patronage  (which  Parliament  could  grasp),  and 
the  direction  of  every  officer  (save  the  judges),  the  enactment 
of  all  laws  and  the  interpretation  of  the  constitution  itself, 
constituted  the  grand  objects  for  which   party  warfare  was 

'  By  making  the  Lord  Chancellor  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and  not  giv- 
ing to  the  V ice-Chancellors  a  tenure  durmg  good  behavior,  the  English 
equity  system  was  left  far  more  dependent  than  is  our  own  upon  political 
favor. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  75''^" 

thereafter  to  be  waged.  Tliis  great  change  was  what  naturally 
and  speedily  led  to  the  development  in  England  of  the  partisan 
system  of  appointment  to  office.  Under  this  system  the  sharing 
of  the  opinions  of  the  party  in  power  and  the  unhesitating  sup- 
port of  the  policy  of  its  administration,  are  conditions  para- 
mount to  personal  merit,  of  receiving  or  retaining  each  and 
every  office,  however  humble  ;  and  the  proscriptive  use  of 
patronage  in  that  sense  is  one  of  the  great  agencies  relied  on  ;  i 
for  party  strength.  In  a  strict  sense,  this  system  was  new  in  ' 
English  politics,  though  Cromwell  and  some  of  the  kings  had  j 
ruled  in  its  spirit.  IS^ever  elsewhere  has  that  system  offered 
so  splendid  and  so  tempting  a  prize  to  party  victory.  And 
never  elsewhere  had  the  government  of  a  country  held  its 
power  by  a  tenure  so  precarious  ;  for  on  no  day  could  a  prime 
minister  be  sure  that  to-morrow  he  and  his  cabinet  would  not 
fall.' 

I  have  thought  it  important  to  recall  those  events,  because 
at  this  date  commences  the  long  trial,  in  Great  Britain,  of  the 
efficiency  of  a  jjartisan  system  of  administration  of  the  same 
kind,  in  general  theory  and  practice,  as  that  known  by  the 
same  designation  in  our  pohtics.  It  went  into  effect  (as  far  as 
the  situation  would  allow)  in  1693,  and  was  continued,  though 
somewhat  modified  in  detail,  without  fundamental  change,  for 
one  hundred  and  sixty  years,  or  until  1853,  when  the  first  ele- 
ments of  the  Merit  System  were  formally  introduced.  While 
there  have  been  dissimilar  conditions  in  the  two  countries, 
effecting  to  some  extent  the  bearing  of  the  experience  of  the  one 
upon  the  other,  I  think  it  will  appear  that  there  is  hardly  a 
phase  of  administration  in  the  United  States  upon  which  that 
of  Great  Britain,  under  the  partisan  system,  will  not  be  found 
to  throw  a  valuable  light.  For  some  years  after  1693,  the 
power  of  the  great  nobles  and  families  unquestional)ly  caused 
the  administration  to  be  as  much  aristocratic  as  partisan  ;  but 
there  was  a  steady  growth  of  parliamentary  influence,  and 
hence  of  the  influence  of  the  gi'eat  parties,  at  the  expense  of  tlie 
Crown  and  privileged  classes.    As  the  power  of  Parliament  and 

'  There  have  been  in  fact,  I  believe,  three  cabinets  in  the  same  montli  in  . 
England,  though  the  average  duration  of  each  has  been  about  three  and  a  | 
half  years. 


76  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRIT  Am. 

of  j)opular  opinion  increased,  the  House  of  Commons  more  and 
more  encroached  upon  the  old  prerogatives  of  the  executive, 
and,  in  similar  measure,  of  course  upon  its  patronage.  Mem- 
bers seeking  patronage  naturally  conditioned  their  support  of 
aspirants  for  seats  in  the  Cabinet  upon  pledges  of  such  patron- 
age ;  and  here  we  have  the  origin  of  members  of  the  legislature 
dictating  local  appointments.  Much  in  the  same  ratio  that 
members  of  Parliament  grasped  patronage,  parliamentary  elec- 
tions became  corrupt  and  the  votes  of  members  became  venal. 
As  a  consequence,  bribery  of  voters  and  of  members  so  in- 
creased that  we  shall  soon  find  the  greater  corruption  in  the 
administration  standing,  for  the  first  time  in  English  history, 
in  connection  with  Parliament  rather  than  with  the  executive. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  practical  effects  of  the  partisan  sys- 
tem, it  will  be  useful  to  consider  how  close  is  the  similarity  in 
the  two  countries  between  the  methods  of  exercising  executive 
authority.  Between  an  hereditary  king  and  nobility  on  one 
side,  and  an  elective  j^resident  and  senators  on  the  other,  the 
difference  of  course  is  vast  ;  but  practically  authority  over 
administration  in  Great  Britain  is  now  neither  with  the  Crown 
nor  the  Lords,  but,  as  here,  is  with  the  Cabinet  and  the  heads 
of  departments.  I  have  said  that  our  Cabinet  is  modelled  upon 
this  original  Cabinet  of  1693.  The  imitation  is  one  of  both 
substance  and  form.  We  borrowed  the  Enghsh  name.  Like 
the  Cabinet  of  England,  our  own  keeps  no  records.  Ours, 
like  hers,  is  unknown  to  the  constitution  and  the  laws.  The 
authority  of  either  is  nowhere  defined  nor  is  the  action  of  either 
anywhere  legally  subject  to  review.  In  each  country  ahke,  the 
Cabinet,  in  a  large  way,  has  tlie  care  of  its  great  affairs  in  peace 
and  war ;  the  one  with  a  king,  the  other  with  a  president,  in 
whose  name  everything  is  done  ;  and  in  the  president  is  united" 
nearly  all  the  powers  of  the  king,  with  perhaps  all  those  of 
the  prime  minister.  The  modal  difference  is  this  :  that  in 
England  the  king  names  ?.  prime  minister  from  the  party 
majority  of  members  elected  by  the  people  to  Parliament,  and 
the  member  so  named  selects  the  other  members  of  the  Cab- 
inet from  the  same  party  majority,  subject  to  the  assent  of 
the  king,  wliich  he  is  almost  certain  to  give  ;  while,  with  us, 
the  president  (himself  elected  by  the  party  majority)  selects 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  77 

the  members  of  Lis  Cabinet  from  that  same  majority,  sub- 
ject to  the  assent  of  the  Senate,  wliich  it  is  almost  certain  to 
give.  The  one  grand  difference  in  the  two  governments,  i 
touching  the  civil  service,  is  the  power  of  the  United  States 
Senate  in  the  matter  of  confirmation,  to  which  no  executive 
authority  possessed  by  Parliament  corresponds  ;  but,  as  a  sort 
of  offset,  the  president  freely  uses  the  veto  power,  which  for 
more  than  a  century  no  British  sovereign  has  used,  and  which 
may  therefore  be  regarded  as  obsolete.' 

Both  methods  alike  bring  into  the  control  of  the  administra- 
tion men  who  stand  for  the  principles  and  policy  of  the  party 
majority  of  the  nation,  and  it  is  their  duty  to  inteq^ret  those  prin- 
ciples and  to  carry  that  pohcy  into  action.  With  us  the  same 
policy  may  be  pui*sued  for  four  years,  unless  aiTested  by  sup- 
ply bills,  even  though  the  party  majority  has  changed.  But, 
in  England,  a  change  of  the  popular  majority  will  be  at  once 
followed  by  a  change  of  the  Cabinet,  unless  Parliament  is 
prorogued,  and  a  new  election  ordered.  In  England  the  per- 
manence of  the  Crown  and  the  House  of  Lords,  and  in  the 
United  States  the  fixed  term  of  the  President  and  the  con- 
servative influence  of  the  Senate,  put  some  check  ujion  the  *\ 
sudden  and  dangerous  oscillations  in  policy  which  the  too  rapid 
changes  in  the  popular  majority  might  otherwise  produce. 
The  constitutions  of  both  countries  give  the  apjjointing 
power,  and  by  implication  the  power  of  promotion,  removal, 
and  control  of  subordinates,  to  the  executive  (which  in  Great 
Britain,  for  nearly  all  administrative  purposes,  means  to  the 
Cabinet  and  departments),  but  in  neither  constitution  has  it 
been  defined  how  that  power  should  be  exercised,  nor  are 
there  any  adequate  safeguards  against  its  use  for  selfish  or  par- 
tisan ends.  "Whether  it  be  a  trust  for  the  public  benefit  or  i 
an  official  perquisite,  each  constitution  leaves  to  inference.  ( 
Hence  it  may  be  said,  with  equal  truth  of  both  govern- 
ments, that  in  principle  those  who  administer  them  may  give 

'  There  is  this  further  difference  in  practice,  that  in  Great  Britain  the  sove- 
reign does  not  preside  at  or  attend  Cabinet  meetings,  wliile  with  us  the 
President  always  presides.  Originally  the  practice  was  the  same  in  Great 
Britain,  but  is  said  to  have  been  discontinued  because  George  I.  could  not 
speak  the  English  language. 
6 


78  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

' '  to  the  party  in  power  those  places  where  harmony  and  vigor 
of  administration  require  its  policy  to  be  represented, ' '  and 
that  both  alike  "  permit  all  others  to  be  filled  by  persons 
selected  with  sole  reference  to  the  efficiency  of  the  public 
service  and  the  right  of  all  citizens  to  share  in  the  honor 
of  rendering  faithful  service  to  their  country."  ^Neither  gov- 
ernment, more  than  the  other,  seems  to  require  that  all  sub- 
ordinate officials  should  be  active  politicians  or  hold  the  same 
political  opinions  as  the  high  officers  who  control  its  policy. 
The  divisions  into  departments — State  and  Foreign  Affairs, 
the  Treasury,  War,  i^aval  Affairs,  Public  Justice,  the  Post 
Office  Department,  with  subdivisions  into  bureaus  and  offices 
having  various  grades  of  official  and  clerical  duty — are,  with 
formal  difference,  in  the  main  the  same  in  the  two  countries, 
except  that  this  great  difference  grows  out  of  the  very  nature 
of  the  two  governments  —  viz. ,  that  ours  most  encourages 
supreme  regard  for  personal  merit  and  accords  the  least  im- 
portance to  wealth,  birth,  and  official  and  social  prestige. 
With  these  elements  of  similarity  in  mind,  we  may  consider 
the  great  trial  of  the  partisan  system  and  its  results  in  Great 
Britain. 

A  few  more  words  will  suffice  as  to  the  reign  of  William. 

The  greatest  statesman  of  his  age  and  the  ablest  man  that 
had  sat  on  the  English  throne  in  modem  times,  he  was  the 
first  of  her  kings  who  had  any  sense  of  the  vital  importance 
of  good  administration  ;  an  importance  all  the  greater  in  the 
fearful  stress  of  arms  and  of  civil  discontent  in  which  so  much 
of  his  reign  was  involved.  Finding  so  few  officials  worthy  of 
confidence,  he  became  a  practical  reformer  himself  ;  taking 
time,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  exacting  duties,  to  make  inves- 
tigations into  the  depaitments  ;  for  example,  going  in  person 
day  after  day  to  the  Navy  Department  and  to  the  Treasury, 
and  overhauling  records  and  accounts  which  disclosed  the  most 
flagrant  incompetency,  neglect,  and  corruption.  He  removed 
many  sinecurists,  enforced  economy  in  various  ways,  and 
brought  able  men  into  the  public  service.  He  was  his  own 
Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  reformed  that  branch  of 
the  service.  He  vetoed  several  bills,  and  (except  in  a  single 
instance)  he  was  tlie  last  English  sovereign  who  has  thought  it 


CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIIT.  79 

prudent  to  use  that  liigh  authority.  He  did  not  allow  members 
of  Parliament  to  acquire  much  control  over  patronage,  but  he 
used  it  in  the  hope  of  strengthening  the  Whig  party.  Still  in 
his  reign  there  began  to  be  a  strong  indication  of  patronage 
falling  into  the  hands  of  members.  His  influence  was  in  favor 
of  retaining  efficient  officers  as  long  as  they  were  honest,  and 
this  much  strengthened  the  example  of  the  pennanent  tenure 
of  judges.  But  he  resorted  to  pensions,  sinecures,  and  venal 
patronage  to  influence  Parliament.  Tliough  in  advance  of 
his  age,  he  did  not  wholly  keep  clear  of  its  corruptions.  His 
high  example,  however,  in  favoring  some  reforms  and  in  giving 
reformers  exemption  from  the  courtly  annoyance  and  the  lordly 
scorn  and  sarcasm,  to  say  nothing  of  the  injustice  and  perse- 
cution, they  had  before  encountered,  so  emboldened  the  re- 
form spirit  that  even  Parliament  itself  was  driven  by  public 
opinion,  for  the  first  time  since  Cromwell's  death,  into  mak- 
ing a  real  investigation  into  the  abuses  of  the  public  service. 
Mr.  Macaulay  says,  "  The  House  fully  determined  to  make  a 
real  reform,  and  in  tnith  nothing  could  have  averted  such  a 
ref onn  except  the  folly  and  violence  of  the  ref onners. ' '  The 
common  fault  of  underrating  the  j)ower  of  those  organized 
about  abuses  of  long  standing,  and  of  believing  the  attempt 
should  be  made  to  remove  all  evils  by  one  drastic  operation, 
was  fatal  for  the  time.  The  House  even  had  the  rashness  and 
folly  to  vote  that  no  person  employed  in  the  civil  service 
(save  the  Speaker,  judges  and  ambassadors)  should  receive 
more  than  five  hundred  pounds  a  year.  All  the  higher 
officials  combined  for  self-defence,  and  the  cause  of  reform 
was  arrested  by  causes  that  may  be  traced  back  to  the  incompe- 
tency and  impetuosity  of  its  own  friends. 

While  the  partisan  system  in  its  early  stages  tended  greatly  to 
increase  the  influence  of  members  of  Parliament  and  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  and  hence  in  many  ways  was  productive  of  good, 
it  early  showed  its  inability  to  much  raise  the  moral  standard 
of  official  hfe.  Even  before  the  close  of  William's  reign  it 
greatly  increased  the  practice  of  bribery.  "  Burnet  assures  us 
that,  at  the  election  of  1701,  when  William  was  still  on  the 
throne,  a  most  scandalous  practice  was  brought  in  of  buying 
votes,  with  so  little  decency  that  the  electors  engaged  them- 


80  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

selves  by  subscription  to  choose  a  blank  person  before  they 
were  trusted  with  the  name  of  the  candidate. "...  In 
a  pamphlet  (published  by  Defoe)  in  1701,  he  tells  us  that 
there  was  a  regular  set  of  stock-jobbers  in  the  city  who  made  a 
business  to  buy  and  sell  seats  in  Parliament,  that  the  market 
price  was  1000  guineas,  and  that  Parliament  was  in  a  fair  way 
of  coming  under  the  management  of  a  few  individuals."  ^ 

The  stronger  and  most  cornipt  interest  in  these  elections  was 
the  new  influence  over  appointments  which  members  of 
Parliament  had  unfortunately  acquired  with  their  enlarged 
legislative  authority. 

In  considering  the  effects  of  party  government,  and  the  par- 
tisan system  for  appointments  and  removals,  now  on  trial,  it  is 
imj)ortant  to  have  clear  views  of  their  relations  to  each  other. 
It  by  no  means  follows  that  party  government  must  enforce  a 
partisan  system  in  carrying  on  the  administration.  Patriotic 
motives  may  prevail  and  personal  worth  may  be  prized  higher 
than  party  zeal.  It  is  unquestionably  essential  to  such  gov- 
ernment that  a  few  of  the  higher  executive  officers  at  the 
head  of  affairs,  who  are  to  carry  into  effect  the  policy,  botli 
domestic  and  foreign,  of  the  dominant  party,  should  share  the 
opinions  of  that  party  and  have  faith  in  its  policy.  Such 
higher  officers  guide  all  executive  affairs,  give  instructions  to 
all  below  them,  and  enforce  official  obedience  everywhere." 
The  political  opinions  of  the  vast  body  of  subordinate  officials, 
including  the  "vvhole  clerical  force,  in  a  properly  regulated 
,  civil  service,  are  not  material  to  the  success  of  such  policy  ; 
]      nor  would  such  subordinates  be  active  politicians  if  not  com- 

'  Lecky's  English  History  in  tlie  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  i.,  p.  397. 
f|         '■'  In    British  administration  there  are  from  thirty-four  to  fifty  of  these 
I  I    higher  officers,  wlio  are  regarded  as  political,  and  who  go  out  when  their 
'    j    party  suffers  defeat.      They  include,  of  course,  all  the  members  of  the  Cab- 
inet, and  certain  of  the  heads  of  departments.     Various  of  the  departments 
— the  Treasury,  Admiralty,  War,  Customs,  Inland  Revenue,  for  example — 
have  Boards  at  their  head,  a  part  of  the  members  of  which  (except  of  the 
{       two  latter)  are  regarded  as  political.     But  there  are  permanent  members  of 
j        these  Boards  who  are  specially  charged  with  the  care  of  the  administrative 
V    work.     Foreign  ministers  are  not  generally  displaced  by  a  new  administra- 
tion, but  may  be,  if  important  questions  of  policy  are  involved  ;   though 
transfers  are  more  frequent  than  removals. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  81 

pelled  to  be  in  order  to  prevent  their  own  removal.  It  is 
quite  open  to  a  party  in  power,  tlierefore,  either  to  enforce  a 
proseriptive,  partisan  system  in  the  civil  service,  or  to  select 
those  to  till  the  subordinate  places  with  paramount  reference 
to  personal  merit,  and  to  leave  them  undisturbed  so  long  as 
their  duties  are  well  performed.  Whether  party  government 
will  insist  on  having  a  partisan  civil  service  will,  of  course,  de- 
pend on  the  relative  strength  of  its  moral  and  patriotic  elements 
as  compared  with  its  corrupt  and  proseriptive  elements.  In 
Great  Britain  the  latter  elements  were  for  a  long  time  con- 
trolling, and  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  subordinated 
by  the  other  until  1853,  when,  as  I  have  said,  the  Merit  System, 
in  a  qualified  fonii,  was  introduced,  without  any  change  in  the 
essential  features  of  party  government. 


CHAPTEE  YIII. 

PARTY  GOVERNMENT  FROM  ANNE  TO  GEORGE  III. 

Attempted  union  of  opposing  elements  in  her  Cabinet. — Advantages  of  par- 
ty government. — Parliament  takes  power  from  the  Crown. — Uses  patron- 
age corruptly. — OfEcers  in  postal  services  prohibited  from  interfering  with 
elections. — Gross  injustice  in  contested  election  cases. — Turning  out  officers 
to  make  places  a  high  Tory  device. — Increase  of  bribery. — Office-holders 
excluded  from  Parliament. — Tiie  partisan  system  degrades  official  life  and 
becomes  a  spoils  system. — Religious  tests  for  office  and  their  consequence. 
— Partisan  censorship  of  the  press. — bales  of  boroughs. — Parliament  grows 
more  corrupt. — Robert Walpole,  his  theory,  and  gross  corruption  of  his  rule. 
— Public  despair. — Duke  of  Newcastle. — Growth  of  higher  public  opinion 
outside  official  life. — John  "Wesley. — William  Pitt. — Drunkenness  and 
gambling,  crime  and  violence,  have  increased. — Fearful  condition  of  pris- 
ons. 

Coming  to  the  tlirone  in  1702,  Queen  Anne  brought  to  it 
no  personal  qualities  likely  to  affect  the  administration,  except 
purity  of  character  and  decided  Tory  sympathies.  Looking  at 
the  party  conflict  from  the  Tory  side,  as  William  had  from  the 
Whig  side,  she  also  sought  peace  and  a  good  execution  of  the 
laws  through  an  administration  of  which  the  leaders  of  both 
parties  were  members.  ' '  Her  ideal  was  a  government  in  which 
neither  Whig  nor  Tories  possessed  a  complete  ascendency. ' '  ' 
Until  near  the  end  of  her  reign  she  persevered  with  such  a 
Cabinet  ;  but,  like  King  William's  experiment  of  the  same 
kind,  it  was  essentially  a  failure,  and  she  finally  yielded  to 
the  advice  of  the  stronger  party.  This  part  of  the  policy  of 
the  two  sovereigns  has,  I  believe,  never  been  tried  by  any  of 
their  successors.  Referring  to  the  contemplated  adoption  of 
the  same  policy  in  the  next  reign,  Mr.  Ilallam  *  says  :  "  But 
the    mischief    of    a    disunited,    hybrid    ministry    had    been 

'  1  Lecky,  p.  46.  ^  Constitutional  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  759. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  83 

sufficiently  manifest  in  the  two  last  reigns  ;  nor  could  George, 
a  stranger  to  his  people  and  their  constitution,  have  under- 
taken without  ruin  that  most  difficult  task  of  balancing  parties 
and  persons,  to  which  the  great  mipd  of  William  had  proved 
unequal."  When  this  theory  of  balancing  party  influence  in 
the  Cabinet  was  at  an  end,  party  government  had  its  fii-st  great 
opportunity. 

Party  government  as  such  (that  is,  as  distinct  from  a  parti- 
san and  corrupt  system  of  administration)  was  an  immense 
advance  in  political  justice  and  civilization.  In  spirit,  it 
declared  the  majority  of  the  people,  instead  of  the  King,  the 
privileged  classes  and  court  favorites,  to  be  the  niling  power. 
It  affirmed  that  great  political  principles,  and  not  royal  and 
aristocratic  pleasure  and  interests,  were  the  true  standards  of 
public  duty.  It  widened  the  circle  of  those  who  enjoyed  the 
monopoly  of  office,  transferring  it  from  the  King,  tlie  nobles, 
and  their  favorites,  to  the  King,  the  dominant  party  (or  at 
least  the  managers  of  that  party),  and  their  favorites.  It  thus 
tended  strongly  to  a  larger  liberty  and  equality,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  stimulated  jDublic  thought  and  gave  to  personal 
worth  and  capacity  larger  opportunity  of  influence.  It  tended 
also  to  inspire  a  higher  conception  of  the  dignity  and  power  of 
government,  as  having  all  its  action  conformable  to  great  polit- 
ical principles  ;  and  it  aroused  a  loftier  feeling  of  self-respect 
in  the  citizen,  since  through  his  party  he  could  make  his 
influence  felt,  and  was  himself  recognized  as  a  part  of  the 
nation.  Party  government,  in  its  larger  spirit,  had  also  this 
salutary  effect  upon  the  administration — that  it  tended  to  make 
it  harmonious,  public  and  national.  In  earlier  times  each  min- 
ister, head  of  department  or  great  office  was  independently 
appointed,  governed,  and  removed  by  the  King  ;  each  acted 
as  an  independent  chieftain  within  his  own  autocratic  sphere 
of  duty  ;  and  the  administration  therein  was  as  diverse  as  it  was 
secret,  capricious,  and  arbitrary.  The  subordinate  officei"s  or 
agents  were  mere  hirelings  of  the  heads  of  departments. 
When  party  government  was  estabhshed,  the  Cabinet  became 
in  theory  one  body  standing  for  a  policy,  and  administering 
the  national  aifairs  as  a  whole.  It  is  also  one  of  the  good 
results  of  the  partisan  system  itself  (as  compared   with  the 


84  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GEEAT   BRITAIN. 

despotic  system),  to  be  set  off  against  its  manifest  evils, 
that  it  introduced  third  persons — the  dominant  party  and  its 
leaders — whom  it  recognized  as  having  a  right  to  be  heard  in 
the  disposal  of  office.  In  earlier  times  the  giver  and  receiver 
were  the  only  parties  to  the  contract.  The  introduction  of 
this  third  party  tended  to  greater  publicity,  since  in  a  measure 
it  opened  the  secrets  of  patronage  and  of  the  spoils  system  to 
public  criticism.  If  it  only  conceded  a  right  to  share  office 
to  those  of  the  dominant  party,  and  not  to  the  people  at  large, 
it  was  at  least  a  great  and  essential  stej)  toward  recognizing  the 
just  claims  of  merit. 

The  appointing  power  and  the  control  of  administration  passed 
as  largely  from  the  Crown  to  Parliament,  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne,  as  it  did  in  this  country  from  the  President  to 
Congress  in  the  twenty  years  following  the  close  of  General 
Jackson's  second  term.  It  was  something  like  a  revolution, 
which  threatened  the  counterpoise  of  legislative  and  executive 
power,  under  each  government.  The  newly  acquired  appoint- 
ing power  was  more  and  more,  under  Queen  Anne,  used  by 
the  dominant  party  for  corrupt  and  merely  partisan  purposes  ; 
foreboding  a  reproduction  of  the  spoils  system  in  another  form. 

Party  government  was  thus  put  to  a  severe  test  in  its  very 
outset.  It  became  more  and  more  clear,  as  its  trial  went  on, 
that  there  was  no  virtue  in  it  adequate  for  the  reform  of  the 
great  abuses  which  it  had  inherited  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  new  order  of  things  soon  developed  serious  evils  of  its  own. 
Parliament  having  ceased  to  be  subservient  to  the  Crown, 
turned  around  and  made  its  appointees  subservient  to  itself. 
Indeed,  it  soon  became  itself  tyrannical. 

It  was  early  perceived  that  the  only  hope  of  reform  was 
in  a  coercive  influence,  from  a  higher  public  opinion,  to  be 
developed  outside  official  circles.  The  time  was  favorable 
for  the  formation  of  that  oj)inion  ;  as  never  before  had  there 
been  such  eminent  men  who  gave  their  talents  to  political 
literature  ;  for  example,  Swift,  Bolingbroke,  Atterbury,  and 
Prior  on  the  side  of  the  Tories  ;  Addison,  Steele,  and  Defoe 
on  the  side  of  the  Whigs.  The  Taller,  the  Spectator,  the 
Guardian,  and  the  EnfjUshman,  and  many  less  celebrated 
journals,  show  the  tendency  toward  popular  discussion.     To  a 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  85 

better  public  opinion  thus  aroused,  \ve  may  attribute  legislation 
(during  some  years  later)  that  helped  to  arrest  those  new  evils. 
The  independent,  reforming  sentiment  to  which  these  times 
gave  an  ineffective  utterance  acquired  a  vast  power  when  pro- 
claimed by  Burke  and  Chatham  in  the  next  generation.  A  law 
enacted  early  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne '  is  an  example  of  the 
demand  of  this  public  opinion.  Keferring  to  the  various  post- 
ofRce  officials,  it  declares  that  if  any  of  them  "  shall  by  word, 
message,  or  writing,  or  in  any  nranner  whatsoever,  endeavor  to 
persuade  any  elector  to  give  or  dissuade  any  elector  from  giv- 
ing his  vote  for  the  choice  of  any  person  ...  to  serve  in 
Parliament,"  he  shall  be  liable  to  a  line  of  $500,  and  on  con- 
viction "  shall  become  disabled  and  incapable  of  ever  bearing 
or  executing  any  office"  under  the  Crown.  That  law  is  still 
in  force,  and  is  printed  in  the  standing  instnictions  before  the 
eyes  of  every  postmaster  in  the  United  Kingdom.  To  its 
salutary  inffiience  we  may  doubtless  attribute  the  exemption 
from  partisanship  and  in  no  small  measure  the  unrivalled  effi- 
ciency of  the  British  postal  service  ;  while  the  absence  of  such 
a  law  in  our  service  has  allowed  so  many  of  our  postmasters 
to  be  politicians  and  their  offices  to  be  electioneering  agencies. 

The  proof  that  patronage  newly  acquired  by  membei's  of 
Parliament,  and  used  in  a  partisan  spirit,  was  rather  a  source 
of  corniption  than  of  puritication,  is  decisive.  The  appetite 
for  patronage  was  as  insatiable  as  it  was  demoralizing  on  the 
part  of  members  of  Parliament.  Ilallam  ^  says  of  this  period  : 
*'  I*s'o  check  was  put  on  the  number  or  quality  of  placemen  in 
the  lower  House.  JVeio  offices  icere  conthiually  created  and 
at  unreasonable  salaries.  Those  who  desired  to  see  a  regard 
to  virtue  and  liberty  in  the  Parliament  of  England  could  not 
be  insensible  to  the  enormous  mischief  of  their  influence  ;" 
nor,  I  fear,  can  we  be  insensible  to  the  fact  that,  to  this  day, 
similar  causes  continue  'to  produce  similar  effects  in  our  own 
legislatures. 

Mr.  Lecky  ^  says  that  the  old  cornnj)tion,  within  Parlia- 
ment, "  increased  rather  than  diminislied  after  the  revolu- 
tion."    In  1G04,  for  example,  Sir  John  Trevor,  tlie    Speaker 

'  9  Anne.  ch.  10,  §  44.  *  Const.  History,  vol.  11.,  p.  733. 

*  England  in  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  i.,  p.  390. 


86  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

(a  cousin  and  warm  friend  of  the  infamous  Jeffreys),  was  con- 
victed of  receiving  a  bribe  of  1000  guineas  from  the  City  of 
London  for  his  services  in  carrying  a  bill  through  the  House  of 
Commons.' 

Mr.  Hallam  ^  shows  how  early  there  was  a  dishonest  use  of 
power  in  contested  election  cases  ;  "  there  was  the  grossest 
partiality  .  .  .  and  contrary  determinations  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  serving  rival  factions, ' '  by  reason  of  which  a  statute  ^ 
was  passed  by  the  House  to  check  its  own  corruption,  which 
renders  the  last  determination  of  the  House  of  Commons  con- 
clusive as  to  the  right  involved.  The  modern  proscriptive 
policy  of  turning  out  all  the  lower  officers  to  make  room  for 
friendly  partisans  was  adopted  by  the  very  generation  that 
originated  party  government.  That  policy  began  with  the 
high  born  Tories.  Bolingbroke,  their  great  leader,  says  Hal- 
lam, exposes  "  their  intention  to  fill  the  employments  of  the 
Kingdom,  down  to  the  meanest,  with  Tories  ;"  at  the  same 
time  declaring  the  Tory  belief  to  be  that  such  a  use  of  patron- 
age and  the  great  property  of  the  Tories  would  keep  them 
in  power  during  the  whole  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  But 
greatly  to  the  surprise  of  the  Tory  leader,  what  happened  was 
that  the  Whigs,  though  without  control  of  patronage,  actually 
got  control  of  the  administration  before  the  end  of  her  reign. 

Bribery  became  so  bold  that,  after  outside  public  opinion 
had  forced  Parliament  to  enact  laws  against  it  (between  1703 
and  1708),  they  seem  to  have  been  disregarded  even  by  those 
who  enacted  them.     Mr.  Lecky  *  (citing  Defoe)  says  : 

* '  Never  was  treating,  bribery,  buying  of  voices  ...  so  open 
and  barefaced.  .  .  .  In  1716  we  find  bitter  complaints  in  Par- 
liament of  the  rapidly-increasing  expenses  of  election,  .  .  .  and 
a  great  number  of  persons  have  no  other  livelihood  than  being  em- 
ployed in  bribing  corporations." 

'  As  Speaker,  Sir  John  was  forced  to  the  ignominious  duty  of  putting  the 
vote  in  the  House  that  adjudged  liis  own  infamy  ;  but  he  did  it  with  a  sub- 
lime effrontery  perhaps  without  example  in  a  legislative  body,  until  William 
M.  Tweed  rose  in  the  Senate  of  his  State  to  vindicate  the  purity  of  partisan 
rule  in  the  city  of  New  York.  Trevor's  corruption  and  expulsion  did  not 
prevent  him  continuing  to  hold  the  office  of  Master  of  the  Rolls  for  twenty- 
two  years  thereafter  !  *  Vol.  ii.,  p.  640. 

3  3  George  II.,  chap.  2.  *  Vol.  L,  pp.  397  and  398. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  '^'''''<">ST,v  «  ' 

'^"^  SQH. 

In  a  short  passage,  Mr.  Lecky/  places  in  very  clear  light 
not  only  the  fact  that  the  new  partisan  system  was  powerless  to 
elevate  the  public  service,  but  the  further  fact  that  the  party 
majority,  in  Parliament,  had  no  disposition  to  ref orin  the  gross 
abuses  in  that  body  : 

"  The  question  in  home  politics,  however,  which  created  most  in- 
terest in  the  nation,  was  of  a  different  kind,  and  it  was  one  which  for 
very  obvious  reasons  Pariiament  desired  as  much  as  possible  to  avoid. 
It  was  the  extreme  corruption  of  Parliament  itself,  its  subserviency 
to  the  influence  of  the  executive,  and  the  danger  of  its  becoming  in 
time  rather  the  oppressor  than  the  representative  of  the  people.  This 
danger  had  been  steadiljf  growing  since  the  Revolution,  and  it  had 
reached  such  a  point  that  there  were  many  who  imagined  that  they 
had  certainly  gained  little  by  exchanging  an  arbitrary  King  for  a  cor- 
rupt and  often  tyrannical  Parliament." 

Though  members  of  Parliament  exercised  without  scruple 
their  new  patronage,*  they  had  sj)irit  enough  to  enact  laws  for 
limiting  the  influence  of  the  executive  in  their  own  body.  By 
one  act  ^  all  persons  holding  pensions  from  the  Crown  were 
rendered  incapable  of  sitting  in  the  House  ;  and  by  another  * 
this  prohibition  was  extended  to  those  who  held  them  for  a 
term  of  years  •  but  a  bill  of  the  House  requiring  an  oath  by 
each  member  that  he  was  not  pensioned,  was  defeated  in  the 
House  of  Lords  ;  a  further  fact  showing  that  the  greater  cor- 
ruption was  in  the  old  ruling  class. 

But  the  inherent  incapacity  of  party  government  to  raise 
the  moral  tone  of  oflScial  life,  except  as  coerced  by  an  indepen- 
dent public  sentiment,  is  shown  in  the  steady  growth  of  cor- 
rupt favoritism,  until  its  most  profound  depths  were  reached 
under  the  administrations  of  Walpole,  Pelham,  and  Xewcastle, 
dunng  the  reigns  of  George  I.  and  George  II.  Xor  shall  we 
find  that  justice  and  liberty,  except  as  protected  by  that  senti- 

'  England  in  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  i. ,  p.  470. 

'  "  Patronage,"  in  Britisli  politics,  seems  to  include  not  merely  the  legal 
right  to  appoint,  but  controlling  influence  in  respect  to  an  appointment. 
When  a  member  of  Parliament  could  influence  an  appointment  effectively, 
he  was  said  to  have  the  patronage  of  that  appointment. 

'  G  Anne,  chap.  7.  ■*  1  George  I. ,  chap.  50. 


88  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN"   GREAT   BRITAIN". 

ment,  were  much  more  cared  for  by  an  arbitrary  party  major- 
ity than  they  liad  been  by  an  arbitrary  King  and  nobility/ 

Following  the  worst  examples  of  the  reigns  of  James  and 
Charles,  the  party  majority,  led  by  men  of  no  religions  j^rin- 
ciples,  enforced  a  religious  test  in  Queen  Anne's  reign,  not 
only  for  all  officers  under  the  national  government,  but  for 
officers  in  corporations  ;  and  this  (in  the  language  of  Mr. 
Lechy,  and  also,  I  may  add,  in  the  language  of  modern  j^ar- 
tisans)  ' '  on  tlie  ground  that  it  was  necessary  for  the  jyarty  in- 
terests, ' '  These  tests  required  the  reception  of  the  eucharist, 
according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  and  so  shame- 
lessly was  one  of  the  most  solemn  sacraments  of  Christianity 
trailed  in  the  mire  of  official  corruption,  and  so  repugnant  was 
the  spectacle  to  the  better  sentiment  outside  of  partisan  poli- 
tics, that  "  it  became  the  general  custom  for  the  minister,  before 
celebrating  the  communion,  to  desire  the  legal  communicants 
to  sejsarate  themselves  from  those  who  were  come  there  purely 
for  the  sake  of  devotion.^ 

In  the  ninth  year  of  the  reign  of  "William  III.,  a  law  was 
enacted  for  political  effect  which  required  that  any  Catholic 
priest  who  should  perform  a  marriage  between  a  Catholic  and 
a  Protestant  should  be  hung  ;  there  were  other  laws  in  the 
same  spirit  ;  and  in  1729,  in  the  reign  of  George  II. ,  a  Fran- 
ciscan friar  died  in  Ilurst  Castle,  in  the  seventy -fourth  year  of 
his  age,  and  the  thirtieth  of  his  imprisonment,  mider  one  of 
these  savages  laws.  When,  in  ITOl,  the  party  majority  had, 
in  pursuit  of  its  factious  ]3ohcy,  delayed  the  public  supplies 
(just  as  we  have  seen  them  delayed  in  our  time),  and  a  respect- 
ful and  constitutional  petition  from  the  people  was  presented, 

'  Party  government,  in  these  earliest  years  of  its  trial,  adopted  one  per- 
nicious practice  which  "we  have  seen  despotic  partisans  continue  in  this  gen- 
eration. "  The  mode  adopted  by  the  Commons  of  tacking,  as  it  was  called, 
the  provisions  for  this  purpose  to  a  money  bill,  so  as  to  render  it  impossible 
for  the  Lords  even  to  modify  them  without  depriving  the  King  of  his  supply, 
tended  to  subvert  the  constitution  and  annihilate  the  rights  of  a  coequal 
House  of  Parliament." — Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  703. 

^  In  one  of  the  states  of  Germany  this  prescriptive  practice  is  said  to  have 
been,  in  its  application  to  licenses,  carried  so  far  that  the  courtesans  were 
required  to  partake  of  the  Communion  as  a  qualification  for  opening  a 
bawdy  house. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  89 

justly  reflecting  on  sueli  conduct,  the  House  voted  the  petition- 
ers seditious,  had  them  arrested,  and  held  them  in  prison  for 
two  months. 

Members  of  Parliament  claimed  that  the  proceedings  of 
their  own  body  (in  the  same  spirit  that  arbitrary  kings  had 
claimed  that  the  causes  and  records  of  their  appointments  and 
removals)  w^ere  a  part  of  their  own  secrets,  as  to  which  it  was 
an  impertinence  for  the  people  to  seek  any  information.  If 
the  right  of  nominating  to  office  was  an  official  perquisite,  with 
which  the  people  had  nothing  to  do,  why  was  not  knowledge 
of  the  doings  of  the  Commons  also  an  official  privilege  ?  It  is 
weU  known  that  it  was  only  after  a  long  and  dangerous  struggle 
(during  which  Parliament  sent  many  a  reporter  to  prison),  ter- 
minating in  the  reign  of  George  III. ,  that  the  right  of  printing 
debates  in  Parliament  was  won  by  the  English  people. 

It  was  not  until  1836 — four  yeai*s  after  the  passage  of  the 
great  reform  bill — ^tliat  the  votes  in  Parliament  were  published 
by  its  ovm  authority.  The  party  majority  also  carried  on  a 
censorship  of  the  public  press,  on  the  theory  that  its  control 
was  as  rightful  and  as  essential  as  was  the  partisan  use  of  the 
appointing  power,  in  order  to  maintain  the  dominant  party  in 
position  and  to  keep  down  its  advei-saries.  And,  on  this 
theory,  Steele  and  others  were  expelled,  Defoe  was  prosecuted, 
and  Tutchin  and  several  besides  were  whipped  by  the  hang- 
man, by  order  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  several  writers 
were  compelled  to  apologize  on  their  knees  at  the  bar  of  the 
House — all  for  the  offence  of  having  written  in  opposition  to 
the  party  majority  of  the  hour.  !Xor  was  any  check  put  to 
this  tyranny  until  Parliament  was  prorogued  by  reason  of  a 
crisis  produced  by  its  order  in  committing  to  ^Newgate  four 
officers  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  engaged  in  carrying  out 
judgments  of  that  court  for  maintaining  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  the  people. 

The  injustice  and  corruption  in  the  matter  of  contested  elec- 
tions, which  Hallam  mentions  as  existing  in  the  reign  of  Wil- 
liam, grew  to  be  far  worse  under  the  two  fii*st  Georges.  !Mr. 
Lecky  '  says  :  "  They  threatened  to  subvert  the  whole  theory 

'  Vol.  i. ,  pp.  477  to  479. 


90  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT  BRITAIN". 

of  representation  ;  .  .  .  tlie  evil  liad  already  become 
apparent  in  the  latter  days  of  William,  but  some  regard  for 
appearance  seems  tlien  to  have  been  observed  ;  .  .  .  soon, 
however,  all  shame  was  cast  aside.  In  the  Tory  Parliament,  in 
1702,  the  controverted  elections,  in  the  words  of  Burnett,  were 
adjudged  in  favor  of  the  Tories  with  such  barefaced  partiality 
that  it  showed  that  the  party  was  resolved  on  everything  that 
might  serve  their  ends.  When  the  Whigs  triumphed  in  1705, 
they  exhibited  the  same  spirit.  In  the  Parliament  wdiich  met 
in  1728  there  were  nearly  seventy  election  petitions  to  be  tried, 
and  Lord  Harvey  lia»  left  an  account  of  how  the  House  dis- 
charged its  functions.  '  I  believe, '  he  says,  '  the  manifest  in- 
justice and  glaring  violation  of  all  truth  in  the  decisions  of  this 
Parliament  surpass  even  the  most  flagrant  and  infamous  in- 
stances of  injustice  of  any  of  their  predecessors. 
People  grew  ashamed  of  pretending  to  talk  of  right  and  wrong, 
and  laughed  at  that  for  which  they  ought  to  have  blushed,  and 
declared  that  in  elections  they  never  considered  the  cause, 
but  the  men,  nor  even  voted  according  to  justice  and  right, 
but  from  solicitation  and  favor.'  " 

This  reference  to  "  solicitation  and  favor  "  as  a  rule  for  a 
decision  that  ought  to  have  been  impartial  and  non-partisan, 
shows  how  readily  the  corrupt  standard  of  bestowing  office  by 
favor  perverts  all  political  action  ;  that  rule  being  in  this  case 
carried  even  into  the  sphere  of  judicial  procedure.  The  cele- 
brated Speaker  Onslow  says  the  rule  ' '  that  the  right  is  in 
the  friend,  and  not  in  the  cause,  is  almost  avowed,  and  he  is 
laughed  at  by  the  leaders  of  parties  who  scruples  upon  it ; 
and  yet  we  should  not  bear  this  a  month  in  any  other  judica- 
ture of  the  Kingdom."  Here  we  see  that  an  independent 
tenure,  so  lately  conferred,  had  already  developed  a  higher 
standard  of  duty  in  the  courts. 

The  utter  demoralization,  on  the  part  of  those  engaged  in 
political  functions,  which  these  facts  disclose,  and  the  tone  of 
despair  and  desperation  (not  unknown  in  our  time)  with  which 
all  honorable  standards  of  political  conduct  were  referred  to,  is 
also  strikingly  illustrated  in  Mr.  Macaulay's  essay  on  Lord 
Chatham,  where  he  says  : 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  91 

*'  These  men  wished  to  transfer  the  disposal  of  employments  and 
the  command  of  the  ai-my  from  the  Crown  to  the  Parliament,  and" 
this  on  the  very  ground  that  the  Parliament  had  long  been  a  grossly 
corrupt  body.  The  security  against  malpractice  was  to  be  that  the 
members,  instead  of  having  a  portion  of  the  public  plunder  doled  out 
to  them  by  a  minister,  were  to  help  themselves." 

There  have  been  several  bills  presented  in  our  Congress 
within  the  last  ten  years  which  have  j^roposed  the  equally  rev- 
olutionary measures  of  substantially  giving  to  members  of 
Congress  all  the  patronage  which  they  have  not  already  appro- 
priated. And  some  of  their  advocates,  for  want  of  a  better 
reason,  have  justified  themselves  in  the  same  way  as  the  men 
referred  to  by  Macaulay.  The  baneful  results  of  the  new 
spoils  system,  in  the  control  of  the  dominant  party,  were  not, 
however,  more  conspicuous  within  Parliament  than  they  were 
in  the  election  of  its  members. 

Mr.  Lecky,  quoting  the  writers  of  these  times,  says  : 

"  Boroughs  are  rated  at  the  Royal  Exchange  like  stocks  and  tallies  ; 
the  price  of  a  vote  is  as  well  known  as  of  an  aero  of  land,  and  it  is  no 
secret  who  are  the  moneyed  men,  and  consequently  the  best  custom- 
ers." 

The  Lord  Chancellor  (Macclesfield)  during  Wali^ole's  ad- 
ministration was  impeached  for  official  corruption  in  selling 
masterships  in  his  own  court.  Robert  Walj^ole,  an  able  man, 
but  utterly  unscrupulous,  who  had  himself  been  in  the  Tower 
for  official  corruption,  naturally  became  the  great  inipei'sona- 
tion  of  the  partisan  spoils  system  of  this  age.  For  the  larger 
part  of  the  time  from  1708  to  1712  he  was  Prime  Minister 
or  in  the  Cabinet.  It  was  as  much  a  part  of  his  theory  and 
that  of  his  coadjutors  that  it  is  necessary  for  a  party,  in  order 
to  keep  itself  in  power,  to  break  open  the  letters  of  its  oppo- 
nents in  the  post-office,  as  it  is  of  partisan  leaders  to-day  that 
they  must  fill  all  offices  with  their  minions  ;  and  therefore  he 
freely  ransacked  his  opponents'  lettei-s  for  their  secrets,  and 
even  literary  authors,  like  Pope,  were  victims  of  his  pillage. 
According  to  Mr.  Macaulay,  he  established  a  regular  practice  of 
giving  places  on  condition  that  a  part  of  the  salary  or  perqui- 
sites should  be  paid  over  to  some  third  person,  and  this  prac- 


1)2  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

tice  seems  to  have  continued  long  after  liis  day.  Tliis  is  tlie 
nearest  approach  in  British  administration  to  our  abuse  of 
levying  jjarty  assessments,  and  is  really  the  same  in  principle 
and  its  equivalent  in  mischief.' 

"He  governed,"  says  Mr.  Lecky,"  "by  means  of  an  as- 
sembly, which  was  saturated  with  corruption,  and  he  fully 
acquiesced  in  its  conditions  and  resisted  every  attempt  to  im- 
prove it.  He  appears  to  have  cordially  accepted  the  maxim 
that  government  must  be  carried  on  by  corruption  or  by  force, 
and  he  deliberately  made  the  former  the  basis  of  his  rule.  He 
bribed  George  II.  by  obtaining  for  him  a  civil  list  exceeding  by 
more  than  £100,000  a  year  that  of  his  father.  lie  bribed  the 
Queen  by  securing  for  her  a  jointure  of  £100,000  a  year. 
He  employed  the  vast  patronage  of  the  Crown,  uniformly  and 
steadily,  with  the  single  view  of  securing  his  political  position, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  im- 
mense expenditure  of  the  secret  service  money,  during  his 
administration,  was  devoted  to  the  direct  purchase  of  members 
of  Parliament.  The  government,  ...  by  the  votes  of 
its  numerous  excise  or  revenue  ofhcers,  by  direct  purchase,  or 
by  bestowing  places  or  peerages  on  the  proprietors,  exercised 
an  absolute  authority  over  many  seats  ;  and  its  means  of  in- 
fluencing the  assembled  Parliament  were  so  great  that  it  is 
difficult  to  undei'stand  how,  in  the  corrupt  moral  atmos2:>here 
that  was  prevalent,  it  was  possible  to  resist  it.  Great  sums  of 
secret  service  money  were  usually  expended  in  direct  bribery, 
and  places  and  pensions  were  multiplied  to  such  an  extent  that 
it  is  on  record  that,  out  of  550  members,  there  were  in  the  first 
Parliament  of  George  T.  no  less  than  271,  and  in  the  first 
Parliament  of  George  II.  no  less  than  257,  holding  offices, 
pensions,  or  sinecures."  "Almost  every  man  of  Aveight  in 
the  House  of  Commons,"  says  Mr.  Macaulay  in  his  essay  on 
Walpole,  "was  officially  connected  with  the  government." 
Macaulay  says  that  in  1742  the  Solicitor  and  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  received  £1,147,211  of  secret  service  money,  and 

'  I  have  before  explained  the  reasons  wliy  the  identical  abuse  seems  never 
to  have  prevailed  in  England,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  the  only  one  in  our  service 
without  a  complete  and  generally  a  more  extreme  English  precedent. 

"  Vol.  i.,  pp.  395,  471,  and  472. 


CIVIL   SEKVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  93 

avoided  giving  any  account  of  it,  Walpole's  agent  evading  the 
answering  of  questions  as  to  the  use  of  tlie  money,  on  the 
ground  that  his  answers  would  tend  to  criminate  himself. 

Walpole  and  his  party  were  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  spoils 
system  to  the  last.  In  the  course  of  his  ministry  he  had 
bestowed  upon  his  sons  permanent  offices,  chiefly  sinecures, 
amounting  in  all  to  about  £15,000  a  year,  and  had  obtained 
the  title  of  Baron  for  his  eldest  son,  and  the  Orders  of  the 
Bath  and  of  the  Garter  for  himself.  He  also  procured  for 
himself  the  title  of  the  Earl  of  Orford  and  a  pension  of  £4000 
a  year,  and  for  his  illegitimate  daughter  the  rank  and  prece- 
dence of  an  earl's  daughter.  In  view  of  such  vast  agencies  of 
power  and  influence,  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  an  able 
leader  of  a  ruling  party,  having  an  overwhelming  majority 
in  Parliament  and  in  all  official  circles,  it  would  seem  almost 
impossible  that  a  minister  like  Walpole  could  ever  be  over- 
thrown. But  such  was  not  a  true  view  of  the  situation  ;  and, 
while  his  unrivalled  sagacity  was  wholly  unimpaired  and  the 
devotion  of  his  party  was  without  abatement,  he  was  hurled 
from  office  in  1742  by  the  irresistible  power  of  public  opinion. 
He  did  not  make  a  fortune  in  public  life.  But  he  had  no 
faith  that  there  could  be  any  disinterestedness  in  public  aifairs, 
and  he  distrusted  all  appeal  to  patriotism  or  duty.  His  only 
reliance  was  self-interest  and  adroit  management.  His 
shrewdness  and  good  judgment  in  estimating  the  strength  of 
all  the  more  selfish  forces  of  politics  were  proverbial  and  were 
probably  never  surpassed  by  any  party  leader.  But,  like 
most  of  the  partisans  of  later  days  who  have  acted  on  his  sys- 
tem, he  was  by  nature  incaj^able  of  measuring  the  force,  or 
even  of  appreciating  the  spirit,  of  that  more  unselfish,  patriotic 
public  opinion  outside  official  and  partisan  circles,  born  and 
cherished  in  the  common  life  of  every  enlightened  people  ; 
and  which,  when  mere  party  managers  least  expect  it,  may 
come  mightily  forth,  sweeping  all  their  plans  and  favorites 
before  its  irresistible  advance.  Walpole  and  his  confederates 
did  not  comprehend  that,  during  the  period  in  which  their 
corrupt  use  of  official  authority  had  been  degrading  the  moral 
tone  of  official  life,  and  of  all  men  and  women  '  within  the  in- 

'  In  tliis  early  stage  of  the  spoils  system,  bright  intriguing  women  acted 

7 


94  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

fluence  of  politics,  tliere  had  been  developiiij^  in  the  virtuous 
houses  of  England  a  high-toned  and  patriotic  demand  for 
purer  methods  in  politics,  which  the  elder  Pitt  was  soon  to 
lead  to  victory  and  glory.  IS^or  did  Walpole  any  more  com- 
prehend that,  in  this  same  period,  a  stern  and  fervent  spirit 
of  religious  revival  was  growing  strong  and  active,  by  reason 
of  the  apathy  and  formalism  of  the  State  Church,  which, 
under  the  lead  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield,  was  soon  to  shake 
the  whole  ecclesiastical  system  at  the  same  time  it  would  elevate 
the  moral  tone  of  the  nation.  Walpole,  therefore,  with  the 
fatuity  of  a  blind  man  rather  tlian  with  the  sagacity  of  a 
statesman,  tried  to  suppress  William  Pitt  (the  future  Lord 
Chatham)  by  depriving  him  of  his  commission  in  the  army. 
He  met  those  who  protested  against  abuses,  and  who  com- 
plained of  his  contempt  for  moral  duty,  "  in  a  strain  of  coarse 
and  cynical  banter,  .  .  .  and  sneeringly  called  them 
patriots,"  saints,  Spartans,  and  boys."  But  the  sentiment  he 
had  scorned,  and  the  power  he  could  not  comprehend,  were 
what  laid  him  low. 

"Above  all,"  says  Mr.  Lecky,  "there  was  the  public 
opinion  of  England,  which  was  doubly  scandalized  by  the  ex- 
tent to  which  parliamentary  corruption  had  arisen,  and  by  the 
cynicism  with  which  it  was  avowed,  and  on  this  point,  though 
on  this  alone,  Walpole  never  respected  it.  Like  many  men 
of  low  morals  and  of  coarse  and  prosaic  natures,  he  was 
altogether  incapable  of  appreciating,  as  an  element  of  political 
calculation,  the  force  which  moral  sentiment  exercises  upon 
mankind  ;  and  this  incajDacity  was  one  of  the  great  causes  of 
hisfalL" 

Had  the  saturnalia  of  corruption,  of  whiclihe  was  the  chief, 
occurred  a  century  or  two  earlier,  there  might  have  been  an 

a  vicious  part.  The  Duchess  of  Kendall,  the  Countess  of  Platen,  the 
Duchess  of  Yarmouth,  and  Mrs.  Howard  made  and  vmmade  officials,  and 
were  generally  quite  as  successful  in  partisan  politics  as  Mrs.  Jencks,  or  any 
female  office-broker  of  our  day.  Even  the  mother  of  Lord  Chatham  tried 
the  virtue  of  a  bribe  of  a  thousand  guineas  to  procure  a  position  for  her 
brother. 

1  "  A  patriot,  sir.  "Why,  patriots  spring  up  like  mushrooms.  I  could 
raise  fifty  of  them  within  four-and-twenty  hours.  I  have  raised  many  of 
them  in  one  night." — Walpole's  Speech  in  reply  to  Sandys. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  95 

opportunity  for  another  Wat  Tyler  or  Jack  Cade  ;  for  "  the 
cry  of  the  people  for  his  blood  was  fierce  and  general,  and 
politicians  of  most  parties  had  pledged  themselves  to  impeach 
him. ' '  '  But  the  English  people  were  now  seeking  reform  by 
peaceable  methods. 

Yet  at  this  crisis  again  we  find  that  the  public  understand- 
ing of  the  real  causes  of  corrupt  administration  was  no  deeper 
than  this  :  they  were  believed  to  have  been  brought  about  by 
a  corrapt  minister,  or  they  were  the  result  of  combinations  of 
bad  men  in  ofiicial  places.  It  was  not  yet  generally  per- 
ceived that  there  could  be  no  permanent  relief  until  the  parti- 
san spoils  system  itself  was  uprooted,  and  a  different  system 
put  in  its  place.  Indeed,  the  time  had  not  arrived  when  public 
investigations  had  disclosed  to  the  j^eople  the  secrets  of  adminis- 
tration. Hence  the  same  historian  tells  us  that  "  to  the  mass 
of  the  nation  the  fall  of  Walpole  was  the  signal  for  the  wildest 
rejoicing.  It  was  believed  tliat  the  reign  of  corruption  had 
at  last  ended  ;  .  .  .  that  all  pensioners  would  be  excluded 
from  Parliament  ;  that  the  number  of  jjlacemen  would  be 
strictly  limited,"  ^  just  as  in  our  day  the  people  have  so  gen- 
erally believed  that  corruption  is  to  end  with  the  fall  of  each 
ofiicial  villain,  which  that  system  has  j^roduced  as  regularly  as 
any  seed  produces  its  kind.  The  partisan  spoils  system  itself 
was  hardly  challenged,  and  it  survived  Walpole  unchanged  in 
its   modes  of  action,  and  only  modified  in  ])ractice. 

It  would  not  shed  much  additional  light  on  the  subject  to 
enter  into  any  detail  concerning  the  ministry  of  Pelliam  or  of 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  which  carry  us  down  to  ITOO,  when 
Georire  III.  came  to  the  throne.  But  in  the  mean  time 
William  Pitt,  representing  the  purer  and  more  non-partisan 
sentiment,  had  become,  just  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  George 
II.,  one  of  his  ministers.  His  influence,  in  a  general  way, 
raised  the  moral  tone  of  the  administration,  but  he  was  com- 
pelled to  leave  the  disposition  of  patronage  almost  wholly  to 
the  Duke  of  ^Newcastle.  And  under  Newcastle,  as  under 
Pelham  for  the  most  part,  Parliament  was  managed,  ofiiecrs 
and  places  were  disposed  of,  sinecure  salaries  were  paid, 
honors  and  titles  were  granted,  on  the  basis  of  favoritism,  bar- 
'  Leckj'.  vol.  i.,  p.  431.  *  IWd.,  p.  428. 


96  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GEEAT  BRITAIN. 

gains,  and  influence,  to  strengthen  the  ruling  party  and  fill 
the  pockets  and  gratify  the  ambition  of  its  favorites. 

How  the  system  had  been  gradually  extended,  so  as  to  estab- 
lish a  general  tyranny  and  arrest  the  advance  of  every  person 
who  did  not  accept  the  creed  of  the  dominant  party  and  con- 
form to  the  discipline  of  its  leaders,  is  well  illustrated  in  the 
case  of  the  great  commentator.  Sir  William  Blackstone.  He 
was  recommended  by  Mr.  Murray  (afterwards  Lord  Mans- 
field) to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  for  the  Professorship  of  Civil 
Law  at  Oxford.     The  Duke  said  to  him  : 

' '  '  Sir,  I  can  rely  upon  your  friend  Mr.  Murray  as  to  your  giving 
law  lectures  in  a  style  beneficial  to  the  students  ;  and  I  dare  say  I 
may  safely  rely  on  you,  -whenever  anything  in  the  political  hemi- 
sphere is  agitated  in  the  university,  that  you  will  exert  yourself  in  our 
behalf. '  '  Your  grace  may  be  assured  that  I  will  discharge  my  duty 
in  giving  the  law  lectures  to  the  best  of  ray  poor  ability, '  was  the 
response.  'Ay,'  replied  his  grace,  'and  your  duty  in  the  other 
branch,  too  ? '  Blackstone  coolly  bowed  :  and  a  few  days  after  Dr. 
Jenner  was  appointed  professor."^ 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  reign  of  (reorge  II.  i)arty  govern- 
ment had  been  on  trial  for  more  than  sixty  years  ;  and,  at 
least  after  the  death  of  William  in  1702,  it  had  not  been 
greatly  influenced  by  the  Crown.  Ministers  especially  under 
the  two  Georges  had  with  little  interruption  controlled  all 
officers  and  patronage,  and  had  exercised  every  kind  of  authori- 
ty at  will.  If,  during  nearly  the  whole  period,  the  dominant 
party  had  been  dragged  down  by  the  spoils  system,  the  union 
with  corruption  was  voluntary,  and  the  party  in  power  was  at 
all  times  free  to  select  its  officers  with  supreme  reference  to 
personal  merit. 

It  undoubtedly  cannot  be  justly  said  that  all  abuses  that 
existed  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  spoils  system  itself  ;  since 
some  of  them  may  have  been  the  inevitable  consequences  of 
the  moral  tone  of  the  age.  The  decisive  question  on  that 
point  is  whether  party  government,  in  union  with  the  sys- 
tem adopted,  kept  the  public  service  on  the  moral  plane  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  or  whether  the  service  fell  below  that  plane.    And 

'  3Iemoir  of  Sir  William  Blackstone. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  97 

it  is  clear  that  the  latter  was  the  case,  and  that  corruption 
flowed  over  from  every  ofRce  and  place  in  politics  into  the 
great  plane  of  private  life.  The  causes  of  Walpole's  fall,  the 
exultation  of  non-partisan  people  upon  it,  the  spirit  that  Pitt 
brought  into  office,  the  fact  that  when  he  came  into  public  life 
poor  he  refused  the  old  perquisites  of  the  paymaster's  office, 
also  prove  this  fact.  "  For  the  corruption  about  him  he  had 
nothing  but  disdain  ;  .  .  .  his  real  strength  was  not  in 
Parliament,  but  in  the  people  at  large.  His  significant  title 
of  the  Great  Commoner  marks  a  political  revolution." 
"  During  his  struggle  with  Newcastle,  the  greater  towns 
backed  him  with  gifts  of  their  freedom  and  addresses  of  confi- 
dence." ' 

* '  History  owes  to  him  this  attestation,  that  at  a  time  when  every- 
thing short  of  direct  embezzlement  of  the  public  money  was  consid- 
ered as  quite  fair  in  public  men,  he  showed  the  most  scrupulous  disin- 
terestedness ;  that  at  a  time  when  it  seemed  generally  taken  for 
granted  that  government  could  be  upheld  only  by  the  basest  and 
most  immoral  acts,  he  appealed  to  the  better  and  nobler  parts  of  hu- 
man nature. ' '  * 

And  he  not  only  did  this,  in  the  same  noble  spirit  that  he 
justified  the  heroic  patriotism  of  our  fathers,  but,  overawing 
not  only  dukes  and  bishops,  but  all  the  confederated  hosts 
of  partisans  and  corruptionists,  he  advanced  higher  than 
any  man  but  Cromwell  had  done  the  character  and  martial 
glory  of  his  country,  at  the  same  time  that,  in  the  name  of 
honor,  duty,  and  justice,  he  acquired  a  respect,  affection,  and 
power,  wherever  the  English  language  was  spoken,  such  as  no 
other  English  statesman  has  ever  commanded.  And  now — 
when  only  infamy  covers  the  memory  of  AYalpole,  Pelham, 
Newcastle,  Bolingbroke,  and  the  whole  corrupt  and  parti- 
san generation,  who  sneered  at  public  virtue  and  religion,  and 
scoffed  at  the  possibility  of  honest  ways  in  government — the 
name  of  Chatham  is  a  part  of  the  glory  of  his  country,  and 
every  American  recalls  it  with  pride  and  gratitude. 

Mr.  Lecky '  quotes  contemporary  authority,  which  speaks 

'  Green's  History,  p.  718.       '  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Lord  Chatham,  p.  11. 
*  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  509. 


98  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT   BRITAIN. 

of  "the  administration  of  justice  as  generally  pure"  (from 
which  the  partisan  spoils  system,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  for 
some  years  excluded),  but  beyond  that  he  jjoints  out  "  the  ever 
widening  circle  of  corruption  which  had  novj  spread  from  the 
Parliament  to  the  constituencies,  and  tainted  all  the  approaches 
of  political  life. ' ' 

After  referring  to  the  fact  that,  at  an  earlier  period  in  the 
century,  worthy  scliolars  had  been  aided  by  government,  he 
says  '  that  "  in  the  reign  of  the  first  two  Georges  all  this 
changed.  The  government,  if  it  helped  any  authors,  helped 
only  those  who  would  employ  their  talents  in  the  lowest  forms 
of  party  libel. ' ' 

In  respect  to  religion  the  tendency  of  the  partisan  system 
was  equally  downward,  until  it  was  arrested  by  the  accession 
of  Pitt  to  the  Cabinet  in  1757.  "  There  has  seldom  been  a 
time  in  which  the  religious  tone  was  lower  than  in  the  age  of 
the  first  two  Georges. ""  On  the  death  of  the  Queen  (Anne), 
church  patronage,  like  all  other  patronage,  degenerated  into  a 
mere  matter  of  party  or  personal  interest.  It  was  distributed, 
for  the  most  part,  among  members  or  adherents  of  the  great 
families,  subject  to  the  condition  that  the  candidates  were 
moderate  in  their  views  and  were  not  inclined  to  any  descrijy- 
tion  of  reform. ' ' 

In  1745,  "good  judges  spoke  with  great  despondency  of 
the  decline  of  public  spirit,  as  if  the  energy  of  the  peoj^le  had 
been  fatally  impaired. ' '  ^ 

It  is,  then,  abundantly  clear  that  party  government,  when 
ujiholding  the  partisan  system  of  appointment,  had  failed 
as  signally  as  any  despotic  or  aristocratic  administration  ever 
tolerated  in  England  had  failed,  to  raise  or  even  prevent 
the  degradation  of  the  moral  tone  of  politics.  But  the  im- 
portant question  remains,  "What  was  the  effect  upon  the  actual 
execution  of  the  laws  ?  The  answer  is  very  clear.  The  miner 
officials  and  the  standard  of  duty  were  such  as  the  system 
would  naturally  produce.  Tliey  were  degraded.     Owing  to  the 

'  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  505. 

2  It  is  said  that  not  more  than  five  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
were  at  this  period  regular  attendants  upon  any  place  of  worship. 
2  Lccky's  History,  vol.  i.,  pp.  505,  506. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  99 

party  in  power  courting  tlie  support  of  the  liquor  interest,  and 
to  the  subserviency  of  venal  officials  to  that  interest,  intoxica- 
tion and  drunken  brawls  fearfully  increased  in  the  time  from 
Anne  to  George  III.  "  In  1749  more  than  4000  persons  were 
convicted  of  selling  spirituous  liquors  without  a  license,  and 
the  number  of  private  ginshops  within  the  bills  of  mortality 
was  estimated  at  more  than  17,000.  At  the  same  time,  crime 
and  immorality  of  every  description  ice  re  rapidly  increasing. 
The  City  of  London  urgently  petitioned  for  new  measures  of 
restriction.  ...  In  1750  and  1751  more  than  11,000,000 
of  gallons  of  spirits  were  annually  consumed,  and  the  increase  of 
population,  especially  in  London,  apj)ears  to  have  been  percep- 
tibly checked.  .  .  .  There  is  not  only  no  safety  of  living 
in  the  town  but  scarcely  any  in  the  country  now,  robbery  and 
murder  are  grown  so  frequent.  .  .  .  The  watchmen  and 
constables,  utterly  inefficient,  are  as  a  rule  to  be  found  more 
frequently  in  the  beer  shops  than  in  the  streets,  and  were  often 
themselves  a  serious  danger  to  the  community.  .  .  .  One 
is  forced  to  travel,  wrote  Horace  Walpole,  even  at  noon,  as  if 
one  were  going  to  battle.  .  .  .  The  weakness  of  the 
law  was  also  shown  in  the  great  number  of  serious  riots  which 
took  place  in  every  part  of  the  Kingdom.  .  ,  .  Outrages 
connected  with  smuggling  were  in  many  parts  of  the  Kingdom 
singularly  daring  and  ferocious,  and  they  were  ofte?!  counte- 
nanced by  a  large  amount  of  iiojjular  sympathy." 

This  was  the  generation  of  the  famous  burglar,  John  Shep- 
herd, of  the  famous  tliief,  Jonathan  Wild,  and  of  the  famous 
highwayman,  Dick  Turjjin  —  all  of  whom  were  hung  in  the 
period  between  1724  and  1739.  Fielding  says  of  the  justices  at 
this  time  that  they  were  "  never  indiiferent  in  a  cause,  but 
when  tliey  could  get  nothing  on  either  side. "  Smollett,  si)eak- 
ing  of  1740,  declares  that  thieves  and  robbers  were  now  become 
"  more  desperate  and  savage  than  they  had  ever  appeared  since 
mankind  was  civilized."  An  address  to  the  King  from  the 
Mayor  and  Aldennen  of  London,  in  1744,  complains  that  '*  per- 
sons anned  with  bludgeons  and  pistols  .  .  .  now  infest 
the  streets  and  places  ...  at  such  times  as  Avere  hereto- 
fore deemed  hours  of  safety."  ' 

'  Leckj''s  History,  vol.  i.,  pp.  518-590. 


100  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

The  prisons  were  loosely  and  inhumanly  managed.  The 
wardenship  of  the  Fleet  Prison,  bought  for  £5000  in  the  time 
of  Lord  Clarendon,  was  publicly  sold  for  the  same  sum  in  1728. 
In  1730  the  judge  and  several  members  of  the  Bar  lost  their 
lives  from  jail  fever  caught  while  trying  prisoners  in  London  ; 
and  in  1750  the  disease  raged  to  such  an  extent  in  Newgate 
Prison  that  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  an  alderman  and  many 
of  inferior  rank  were  its  victims  while  an  assize  was  being 
held.  In  1759,  Dr.  Johnson  computed  the  number  of  imj^ris- 
oned  debtors  at  not  less  than  20,000,  and  asserted  that  one  in 
four  died  every  year  from  the  treatment  they  underwent. 
Often  the  criminals  staggered  to  the  gallows,  and  some  of  the 
most  noted  were  exhibited  for  money  by  the  turnkeys  before 
their  execution.  Dr.  Dodd,  a  clergyman  convicted  of  forgery, 
was  exhibited  for  two  hours  for  a  shilling  a  head.  All  the 
high  officials,  even  Addison,  took  shares  in  public  lotteries, 
which  were  not  suppressed  in  England  until  1823. 

Demoralization  extended  even  to  the  stage  (as  it  did  in  New 
York  City  in  the  time  of  Barnard  and  Tweed),  and  "  the  English 
stage,"  says  Mr.  Lecky,  "  was  far  inferior  to  that  of  France 
in  decorum,  modesty,  and  morality."  MissPelham,  daughter 
of  the  Prime  Minister  under  George  I. ,  M'as  one  of  tlie  most 
notorious  gamblers  of  her  time,  and  in  the  palmy  days  of  the 
partisan  spoils  system  under  Walpole  gambling  in  England 
reached  its  climax.  An  illustration  of  the  higher  moral  senti- 
ment, outside  the  sources  of  corruption,  may  be  found  in  the 
fact  that,  at  this  period,  there  were  many  active  societies  "  for 
the  reformation  of  manners"  (or  rather  morals)  ;  and  tlieirj 
members  became  a  sort  of  voluntary  police.  In  1735  their 
aggregate  prosecutions  in  London  and  Westminster  alone  had 
reached  the  enormous  number  of  99,380. 

No  one  at  all  acquainted  with  tlie  influence  of  the  liquor  in- 
terest over  official  ajipointments  under  our  spoils  system — no 
one  wdio  knows  the  extent  to  which  gambling  and  lottery 
ticket  selling  are  encouraged  and  protected  by  the  associations 
and  the  corrupting  influences  which  grow  out  of  a  venal  and 
partisan  bestowal  of  office — no  one,  especially,  who  has  wit- 
nessed prison  life  degradation  in  some  parts  of  New  York,  or 
in   any   prison  given  over  to  corinipt  partisan  control,  whether 


YViX^*^    >,v, 


••>  *.U, 


ftlMITN  WASHINGTON  IQi, 
CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  101 

in  village  or  country — in  this  generation — will  fail  to  see  the 
significance  of  the  facts  1  have  cited,  as  illustrations  of  the  char- 
acter and  effects  of  early  partisan  administration  in  England. 
I  have  thought  it  all  the  more  desirable  to  bring  out  pretty 
fully  the  character  and  methods  of  such  administration  in  its 
early  stages,  especially  because  they  bring  us  close  upon  the 
time  of  our  Revolution  ;  and  altogether  they  show  the  system 
inherited  by  George  HI.,  who  used  all  its  vicious  resources 
(against  the  influence  of  Chatham,  Rockingham,  and  Burke, 
and  all  the  true  friends  of  administrative  reform)  to  reduce  our 
fathers  to  political  slavery.  In  view  of  such  abuses,  it  seems  all 
the  more  strange  that  so  few  safeguards  were  provided  against 
them  in  our  constitution  and  early  Federal  laws  ;  an  omission 
only  to  be  accounted  for,  I  venture  to  think,  by  the  fact  that 
in  this  country  they  were  hardly  kno^^^l  at  our  Revolution,  and 
that,  even  in  England,  they  had  in  but  small  measure  become 
a  part  of  general  information. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ADMINISTRATION  UNDER   GEOEGE   III. 

Its  condition  and  public  opinion  in  1760. — His  theory  of  governing. — Tries 
to  break  up  party  government  and  to  govern  tlirough  ' '  The  King's  friends. ' ' 
— Meddlesome  and  arbitrary. — Lord  Bute. — Favoritism  and  venality." — Bri- 
bery.— The  King  urges  on  war  against  America. — Corrupt  lotteries  to 
pay  its  expenses. — King  interferes  with  Parliament. — Guilty  of  bribery. — 
Religious  tests. — Great  obstacles  in  way  of  reform. — Spoils  system  in  the 
State,  Church  and  the  ArmJ^ — Borough  abuses  in  England,  in  Scotland, 
in  Ireland. — Municipal  corruption  and  intolerance. — Power  of  impress- 
ment used  politically. — Dominant  party  opens  letters  and  employs 
spies. — Debates  state  secrets. — Liberty  of  the  press  not  allowed. — General 
warrants  issued  by  ministers. — Spoils  system  extended  to  America. — First 
reform  administration. 

Such  was  tlie  condition  of  administration  and  tlie  temj^cr 
of  the  public  mind  in  ITGO  when  George  111.  came  to  the 
throne. 

Corruption,  extravagance,  inefficiency  everywhere  in  the 
domain  of  politics,  except  where  the  influence  of  William  Pitt 
and  his  followers  was  felt.  A  high-toned,  rapidly  growing 
public  opinion  abroad  among  the  people — the  strength  of 
Pitt  and  Burke  in  politics,  and  of  "Wesley  and  "Wliitefield  in 
religion — indignant  at  the  pervading  abuses,  crying  aloud  for 
reform,  but  ill  instructed  as  to  their  deeper  causes,  and  without 
experience  in  the  ways  of  their  removal.  Party  government, 
having  been  on  trial  for  sixty-seven  years,  was  in  full  vigor. 
As  an  agency  for  expressing  the  opinions  and  interests  of  a 
nation,  for  embodying  them  in  national  j^olicy,  and  for  carry- 
ing that  policy  into  effect,  there  was  no  great  protest  against 
it ;  and  it  may  be  added  there  has  not  been  any  such  pro- 
test to  the  present  time.  The  party  method  of  governing, 
which  originated  under  William  III. ,  stands,  in  its  essential 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN'  GREAT  BRITAIN,  l03 

features,  nnclianged  and  uncliallenged  by  the  Britisli-  nation 
to  this  hour. 

The  sentiment  which  was  to  separate  tliat  method,  first, 
from  the  partisan  sjDoils  system  of  appointment,  and,  next, 
from  the  partisan  system  itself,  was,  when  George  III.  came 
to  the  throne,  only  a  great  unorganized  mass  of  public 
opinion,  not  knowing  either  its  own  power  or  how  to  attack 
the  corniption  which  it  was  its  high  mission  to  overthrow. 
That  traditionary  loyalty  which  was  universal,  and  that  ser- 
vile spirit  of  obedience  which  was  general,  forgetting  the 
past,  hopefully  and  blindly  trusted  the  future  to  the  pleasure 
of  a  fresh  young  king — even  at  the  moment  that  he  adopted 
the  spoils  system,  as  being  altogether  as  much  a  part  of  his 
heritage  as  the  croA\'n  itself  ;  just  as  at  our  elections  we  have 
trusted  that  reform  was  certain  as  successive  presidents  have 
made  a  fresh  application  of  the  same  old  spoils  system. 

Great  changes  took  place  in  public  administration  during 
the  sixty  years  George  III.  was  on  the  throne.  For  about 
twenty  years  after  his  accession  he  had,  for  the  most  part, 
liis  own  way.  At  the  close  of  that  period  the  refonn  spirit 
had  become  too  bold  and  strong  for  the  King.  An  ascending 
plane  of  administration  was  then  entered  upon,  which  has  ever 
since  been  held.  During  the  first  period,  he  pushed  the  sjjoils 
system  generally  to  extremes  of  tyranny  and  corruption  almost 
as  great  as  it  had  ever  reached  ;  and,  in  some  particulars,  he 
was  the  worst  administrative  t}Tant  (except  James  II.)  ever  on 
the  English  throne.  N'arrow,  proud,  obstinate,  and  relentless, 
yet  highly  patriotic  and  sincere,  he  was  a  sort  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son, crowned.  He  w^as  unfaithful  to  party  government  itseK  ; 
not  that,  like  WiUiam  and  Anne,  he  tried  to  amalgamate  par- 
ties or  to  rule  by  compromise  councils  ;  for  his  aim  was  to 
build  up  a  party  of  his  o^vn,  called  "  The  King's  Friends," 
based  on  patronage  and  prerogative,  and  to  subordinate  every- 
thing in  the  government  to  his  own  arbitrary  will.  And,  for 
a  time,  he  had  apparently  great  success.  But,  in  fact,  this 
specious  success  contributed  to  that  bold  sentiment  among 
the  people,  demanding  liberty  and  refonn,  whicli,  within 
twenty  years,  gave  the  death-blow  to  the  worst  parts  of  the 
spoils  system  itself,  arrested  the  arbitrary  j)ower  of  the  Cro^^'n, 


104:  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN". 

reinstated  partv  government  in  its  true  position,  and  so  humil- 
iated the  King  that  he  ordered  his  royal  yacht  to  be  made 
ready  for  his  retirement  to  Hanover. 

There  never  has  been  in  times  of  peace  a  more  desperate 
struggle  between  official  coercion  and  mercenary  influence  on 
the  one  side,  and  a  few  noble  men,  standing  for  public  hon- 
or and  duty,  and  leading  the  higher  sentiments  of  a  nation, 
on  the  other,  than  the  earher  period  of  this  reign  presented. 
It  is  especially  interesting  as  showing  how  a  king  may  apply  a 
spoils  system  to  break  down  the  very  parties  which  had  ma- 
tured it  for  their  own  selfish  purposes. 

'*  The  King  desired  to  undertake,  personally,  the  chief  administra- 
tion of  pubhc  affairs,  to  direct  the  policy  of  his  ministers,  and  him- 
self to  distribute  the  patronage  of  the  Crown.  He  was  ambitious  not 
only  to  reign  but  to  govern.  ...  It  was  the  King's  object,  not 
merely  to  supplant  one  party  and  establish  another  in  its  place,  but  to 
create  a  new  party,  faithful  to  himself,  regarding  his  personal  wishes, 
carrying  out  his  policy,  and  dependent  on  his  will.  This  party  was  soon 
distinguished  as  '  The  King's  Men  '  or  '  The  King's  Friends.'  "  ^ 

' '  Day  by  day  George  himself  scrutinized  the  voting  list  of  the  two 
houses,  and  distributed  rewards  and  punishments  as  members  voted 
according  to  his  will  or  not.  Promotion  in  the  civil  service,  prefer- 
ment in  the  church,  or  rank  in  the  army  was  reserved  for  the  '  King's 
friends. '  Pensions  and  court  places  were  used  to  influence  debates. 
Bribery  was  employed  on  a  scale  never  known  before.  Under  Bute's 
ministry,  an  office  was  opened  at  the  Treasury  for  the  bribery  of  mem- 
bers, and  twenty-five  thousand  pounds  are  said  to  have  been  spent  in 
a  single  day. 

.  .  .  ' '  Not  only  did  he  direct  the  minister  in  all  important  matters 
of  foreign  and  domestic  policy,  but  he  instructed  him  as  to  the  man- 
agement of  debates  in  Parliament,  suggested  what  motions  should  be 
made  or  opposed  and  how  measures  should  be  carried.  He  reserved 
for  himself  all  the  patronage,  he  arranged  the  whole  cast  of  the  ad- 
ministration, settled  the  relative  plan  and  pretensions  of  Ministers  of 
State,  law  officers,  and  members  of  the  household,  nominated  and 
promoted  the  English  and  Scotch  judges,  appointed  and  translated 
bishops  and  deans,  and  dispensed  other  preferments  in  the  Church. 
He  disposed  of  military  governments,  regiments,   and  commissions, 

'  May's  Constitutional  Hifetory  of  England,  vol.  i.,  pp.  23,  24,  and  60. 


CrV'IL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  105 

and  himself  ordered  the  marching  of  troops.  He  gave  and  refused 
titles,  honors,  and  pensions.  All  this  immense  patronage  was  steadily 
used  for  the  creation  and  maintenance  of  a  party  in  both  Houses  of 
Parliament  attached  to  the  King  himself,  and  its  weight  was  seen 
in  the  dependence  to  which  the  new  ministry  was  reduced."  ^ 

Macaiilay,  in  his  essay  upon  Lord  Cliatliam,  after  stating 
that  all  ranks  from  the  highest  to  the  loM-est  were  to  be  tanght 
that  the  King  would  be  obeyed,  and  that  lords-lieutenants  of 
several  counties  were  dismissed,  adds  (in  language  as  applica- 
ble in  spirit  to  this  generation  and  in  this  country  as  to  the 
royal  despot  whom  our  fathers  fought) : 

' '  But  as  nothing  was  too  high  for  the  revenge  of  the  court,  so"  also 
was  nothing  too  low.  A  prosecution,  such  as  had  never  been  known 
before  and  has  never  been  known  since,  raged  in  every  public  de- 
partment. Great  numbers  of  humble  and  laborious  clerks  were  de- 
prived of  their  bread,  not  because  they  had  taken  an  active  part 
against  the  ministry,  but  merely  because  they  owed  their  situations  to 
the  recommendation  of  some  nobleman  or  gentleman  who  was  against 
the  peace.  The  proscription  extended  to  tide-waiters,  to  gangers,  to 
door-keepers.  One  poor  man,  to  whom  a  pension  had  been  given 
for  his  gallantly  in  a  fight  with  smugglers,  was  deprived  of  it  because 
he  had  been  befriended  by  the  Duke  of  Grafton.  An  aged  widow, 
who,  on  account  of  her  husband's  services  in  the  navy,  had  many 
years  before  been  made  housekeeper  in  a  public  ofRce,  was  dismissed 
from  her  situation  because  it  was  imagined  that  he  was  distantly  con- 
nected by  marriage  with  the  Cavendish  family.  The  public  clamor, 
as  may  well  be  supposed,  grew  daily  louder  and  louder." 

The  cornipt  intrigues  and  the  fierce  contentions  about  col- 
lectorships  and  postmasterships,  and  all  places  in  the  customs 
and  the  excise  service,  were  not  carried  on  by  bodies  corre- 
sponding to  our  primary  organizations,  for  the  mass  of  the 
people  were  not  allowed  to  vote  ;  nor  did  members  of  the  two 
houses  of  Parliament  bestow  so  much  of  their  time  and  thought, 
as  have  our  Senators  and  Kepresentatives,  in  planning  and 
scheming  in  connection  with  such  offices  ;  for  members  of  Par- 
liament had  not  then  secured  that  complete  control  over  pat- 

'  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  pp.  733  and  737. 


106  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

ronage  wliicli  they  were  able  to  nsuqj  during  the  next  genera- 
tion ;  but  these  struggles  were  carried  on  between  borough- 
mongers  and  the  agents  of  great  officers  and  nobles,  or  between 
ministers,  bishops,  royal  favorites,  and  the  nobility  in  per- 
son. There  is  nothing  new,  however,  in  our  constant  and 
unseemly  contentions  about  petty  offices  and  small  local  pat- 
ronage excej)t  the  station  in  life  and  the  official  designation  of 
those  who  most  engage  in  them. 

Everywhere  the  freedom  of  elections  was  invaded  and  the 
whole  power  of  the  Crown  and  of  the  ministry  was  used  to  in- 
timidate, bribe,  or  cajole  the  voters. 

"  In  a  letter  to  Lord  North,  in  1772,  the  King  says  :  'I  expect 
every  nerve  to  be  strained  to  (^arry  the  bill.  ...  I  have  a  right 
to  expect  a  hearty  support  from  every  man  in  my  service,  and  I  shall 
rememher  defaulters.''  And  in  a  letter  a  few  days  after  he  says: 
*  I  wish  a  list  could  be  prepared  of  those  that  went  away  and  of  those 
that  deserted  to  the  minority  (on  the  division  in  the  committee). 
That  would  he  a  rule  for  my  conduct  in  the  draioing-room  to-morrow.''  " 

Here  we  see  that  it  was  not  merely  royal  and  official  power, 
but  social  opportunity  and  ostracism  as  well,  that  were  to  be 
coercively  used.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  whether  James  II.  or 
President  Jackson  would  have  most  admired  this  tlieory  of 
George  III.,  but  both  of  them  would  have  felt  at  home  with 
him.  It  is  certain  that  President  Jackson  has  by  no  means 
such  claims  to  originality  as  are  generally  conceded  to  him. 

Such  a  policy  naturally  called  for  an  unscrupulous  man  like 
Lord  Bute  '  to  lead  in  its  execution.  He  was  a  facile  agent  in 
using  money,  offices,  sinecures,  increased  salaries  and  pensions, 
titles  and  every  form  of  intimidation,  flattery  and  bribery  in 
support  of  the  government.  Tlie  following  letter  illustrates 
the  relation  between  ministers  and  their  supporters  in  Parlia- 
ment in  those  times  : 

'  He  rested  imder  a  charge  of  betrajinghis  country  for  money  in  a  treaty, 
and  of  illicit  intercourse  witli  the  widow  of  the  Priuce  of  Wales.  His  ideas 
of  literature  and  of  office  were  quite  in  keeping,  for  lie  expended  $50,000  of 
his  dislionest  fortune  in  a  great  work  on  botany,  but  Iiad  the  plates  de- 
stroyed when  twelve  copies  were  stiiick  off,  in  order  that  the  work  might 
be  exclusive. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  107 

Xov.  26,  1763. 
Honored  Sir  :  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  that  freedom  of 
converse  you  this  morning  indulged  me  in,  which  I  prize  more  than 
the  lucrative  advantage  I  then  received.  To  show  the  sincerity  of  my 
words  (pardon,  sir,  the  perhaps  over-niceness  of  my  disposition),  I 
return,  enclosed,  the  hill  for  £300  you  favored  me  with,  as  good 
manners  would  not  permit  my  refusal  of  it  Avhen  tendered  by  you. 
Your  most  obliged  and  obedient  servant. 

Save  &  Sele. 

But  all  these  venal  influences,  so  long  effective  in  British 
administration,  and  all  the  power  of  the  Crown  united  with 
them,  were  now  unable  to  keep  Lord  Bute  in  power  for  more 
than  ten  months.  He  had  not  preserved  the  proper  secrecy, 
and  the  honest  public  opinion  of  a  nation — of  which  the  letters 
of  Junius  and  the  unprecedented  boldness  of  the  public  press 
were  an  utterance — began  at  this  time  to  be  more  than  ever 
before  a  power  in  the  State.  Mr.  May  '  says,  "  The  govern- 
ment was  soon  at  issue  with  the  press.  Lord  Bute  was  the  first 
to  illustrate  its  power.  Overwhelmed  by  a  stonn  of  obloquy 
and  ridicule,  he  bowed  down  before  it  and  fled.  . 
Yainly  did  his  own  hired  writers  endeavor  to  shelter  him. 
Yainly  did  the  King  uphold  his  favorite."  This  was  the  first 
great  triumph  of  the  higher  sentiment  at  this  period.  And  it 
powerfully  contributed  to  the  civil  service  reform  policy 
which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  a  few  yeai-s  later  inaugurated. 

But  the  King  and  his  favorites  adhered  to  the  sj)oils  system 
as  long  as  possible.  Yast  sums  of  money  were  raised  for  the 
public  use  by  lotteries  as  well  as  by  loans.  Ofiicials  made  large 
sums  dishonestly,  in  1763,  out  of  these  loans.  In  1767,  there 
were  huge  stock-jobbing  transactions,  in  which  as  many  as  sixty 
members  of  Parliament,  including  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer himself,  were  involved.  In  1769,  it  appeared  that 
20,000  lottery  tickets,  on  the  raising  of  a  public  loan,  bad  been 
disposed  of  to  members  of  Parliament,  which  sold  at  a  pre- 
mium of  £2  each.  A  motion  in  that  virtuous  body,  in  the 
same  year,  to  prohibit  members  receiving  more  than  twenty 
tickets  each  (and  backed  by  charges  that  as  many  as  fifty  mem- 

'  Constitutional  History,  vol.  11.,  p.  110. 


108  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

bers  had  subscribed  for  as  many  as  five  hundred  tickets  each) 
was  voted  down.  But  what  may  perhaps  enable  us  to  more 
fully  appreciate  the  influence  and  resources  of  the  spoils  sys- 
tem at  that  time  is  the  fact  that,  in  1T81,  Lord  North,  in 
order  to  raise  £12,000,000  with  which  to  carry  on  the  war 
against  this  country,  resorted  to  a  sale  of  lottery  tickets,  and 
so  disposed  of  a  great  part  to  members  '  of  Parliament  as  to 
make  them  corruptly  interested  in  the  success  of  the  loan. 
Lord  Rockingham  declared  the  loan  was  made  "  for  the  pur- 
pose of  corrupting  Parliament  to  support  a  wicked,  impolitic, 
and  ruinous  war. ' '  The  King  persisted  in  the  more  coiTupt 
parts  of  the  spoils  system,  even  after  an  indignant  public 
opinion  had  begun  to  overawe  his  minions.  As  late  as  March, 
1Y81,  he  used  this  language  in  a  letter  to  Lord  North  :  "  Mr, 
Kobinson  sent  me  the  list  of  the  speakers  last  evening,  and 
of  the  very  good  majority.  I  have  this  morning  sent  him 
£6000  to  be  placed  to  the  same  purpose  as  the  sum  transmitted 
on  the  21st  of  August."  The  King  was  as  lavish  of  titles  of 
nobility  as  he  was  of  money  ;  and  Mr.  May  says  there  were 
three  hundred  and  eighty-eight  conferred  during  his  reign. 

But  the  facts  now  presented  by  no  means  convey  an  adequate 
conception  of  the  strength,  the  oppression,  or  the  manifold 
resources  of  the  Biitish  spoils  system  of  a  century  ago,  and 
therefore  fall  far  short  of  presenting  the  hostile  influences  which 
later  reforms  have  had  to  overcome.  Some  further  illustra- 
tions will  be  useful.  They  will  show  how  much  more  diffi- 
cult reform  was  in  England  than  it  would  be  with  us. 

1.  The  King,  having  all  executive  power,  and  the  House 
of  Lords,  with  half  the  legislative  power,  united  with  a  vast 
preponderating  social  and  moneyed  influence,  have  their 
foundation  in  a  political  theory  and  custom  utterly  hostile  to 
the  just  claims  of  personal  merit  and  common  right  before 
the  law.  Indeed  they  represent  in  large  measure  only  birth- 
right, favoritisms,  property,  and  privilege  —  or,  in  a  word, 
feudalism.  Every  nobleman  (and  I  might  add  every  bishop) 
liad  a  strong  personal  interest — to  say  nothing  of  the  safety 
of  his  class — in  maintaining  the  old  system  under  which,  for 

'  Seven  members  subscribed  £70,000  each,  others  £50,000,  and  one 
£100,000. 


aWAED  C00PS8 

«  HORTH  WASHING j-n' 
CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  10^^'^' 

centimes,  the  sons,  the  decayed  stewards,  and  tlie  favorites  of 
liis  ancestors  liad  monopolized  the  offices  and  places,  both  in. 
Church  and  State.  Whoever  advocated  a  reform  that  based 
selections  for  the  public  service  on  personal  worth  was  com- 
pelled to  challenge  the  privileges  of  the  nobihty. 

2.  The  administrative  system,  in  an  old  country,  carries 
with  it  the  immense  influence  of  usage,  which  is  indeed  a 
vital  part  of  the  English  constitution  itself.  It  was  a  part  of 
that  ancient  usage — in  fact,  it  was  and  is  now  a  part  of  the 
system  of  government  itself — to  bestow  titles,  orders,  and 
decorations — always  conferring  social  rank  and  often  political 
power — as  a  mere  matter  of  favor  ;  and  with  the  common 
understanding  that  they  imj)osed  an  obligation  of  grateful 
allegiance  and  friendly  service  ;  a  practice,  in  spirit  and  influ- 
ence, utterly  hostile  to  tlie  paramount  claims  of  personal 
merit  and  common  right,  to  which  all  true  civil  service 
reform  must  respond. 

3.  The  partisan  system,  in  the  time  of  George  III.,  was  as 
paramount  in  the  State  Church  as  in  politics.  According  to 
its  methods,  bishops,  deans,  and  vicars  secured  their  places. 

'*  The  piety  of  a  churcliman  brought  him  no  preferment,  unless  his 
political  orthodoxy  was  well  attested.  All  who  aspired  to  be  preben- 
daries, deans,  and  bishops  sought  Tory  patrons  and  professed  the 
Tory  creed. ' '  ^ 

Advowsons,"  presentations  to  livings,  and  clerkships  in  the 
Church  were  as  unscruj)ulously  conferred  by  favor  as  were 
the  meanest  civil  offices,  and  they  were  as  openly  advertised 
and  sold  as  calves  and  cabbages.  The  Sacrament  of  that 
Church  was  a  legal  test  at  the  gates  of  nearly  every  office, 
national,  municipal,  and  corporate. 

"  Tlie  incapacity  of  dissenters  extended  not  only  to  govenimcnt 
employments  but  to  the  direction  of  the  Bank  of  England,  the  East 
India  Company,  and  other  chartered  companies.  The  City  of  Lon- 
don had  perverted  the  corporation  act  into  an  instrument  of  extortion 
by  electing  dissenters  to  the  office  of  sheriflE,  and  exacting  fines  when 

>  2  May's  History,  48. 

*  And  they  are  openly  sold  at  this  day,  as  I  shall  more  fully  point  out. 
8 


110  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

they  refused  to  qualify. ' '  (That  is  by  taking  the  Sacrament  after  the 
manner  of  the  Church  of  England.)  No  less  than  £15,000  had  thus 
been  levied.^ 

The  creed  of  that  Cliurcli  was  practically  a  condition  of 
entrance  to  the  great  universities  and  professions.  Its  bishops 
had  seats  in  the  House  of  Lords  ;  and  throughout  the  nation 
its  monopoly  of  official  station,  its  vast  wealth  and  social 
prestige,  its  friends  everywhere  controlling  the  local  magis- 
tracy, and  in  manifold  ways  influencing  the  private  life  of  the 
people,  made  it  a  vast  power  opposed  to  reform  in  the  civil 
service.  Its  sympathies  were  therefore  strongly  with  the 
King  and  the  nobility  ;  and  the  King  and  his  ministers  had 
no  more  scruples  about  using  Church  patronage  ^  than  about 
using  political  patronage. 

4.  That  system  also  extended  to  the  army  and  navy.  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  point  out  that  the  English  regular 
army  remained  under  a  sort  of  spoils  system  —  commissions 
being  openly  bought  and  sold  as  well  as  secured  by  influence 
and  favor — ^long  after  we  had  made  provision,  at  the  national 
cost,  for  high  personal  qualifications  for  office  in  our  regular 
army.  By  orders  of  the  King,  worthy  military  officers  like 
General  Conway  and  Colonel  Barre  (who  sympathized  with 
this  country)  were,  on  account  of  votes  in  Parliament,  de- 
prived of  their  commands.  Political  proscription  extended  to 
all  grades  of  office  in  the  army. 

Having  fortunately  (yet  with  far  less  consistency  than  the 
original  English  system)  taken  our  army  offices  out  of  parti- 
san politics,  but  leaving  our  civil  officials  embroiled  in  them, 
we  look  with  surprise  at  the  old  English  practice  ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  modern  Englishmen,  who,  (until  within  this 
decade  saw  offices  in  their  army  bought  and  sold,)  finding 
their  civil  offices  now  conferred  upon  merit,  look  upon  our 
favoritism  and  partisanship  in  civil  administration  with  aston- 
ishment and  disgust.       Mr.  May  quotes  Mr.  Grenville,  while 

'  2  May,  pp.  315-324. 

"  The  king,  after  keeping  the  Bishopric  of  Osnaburgh  open  for  near  three 
years,  contrary  to  the  custom  which  allows  but  six  months,  bestowed  it 
upon  his  son,  a  new-born  child,  before  it  was  christened.  The  revenue  was 
about  £35,000  a  year.— Walpole's  Memoirs  of  George  III.,  vol.  1.,  p.  320. 


CIYIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  Ill 

minister  to  George  III.,  to  the  effect  tliat  "  he  never  would 
admit  the  distinction  between  cidl  and  mihtary  appoint- 
ments. ' '  The  King  maintained  that  position  until  Mr.  Pitt 
became  minister,  wlien  he  was  forced,  by  public  opinion,  to 
forbear  enforcing  political  prosci-iption  against  army  officers  ; 
and  the  practice  has  never  since  prevailed. ' 

5.  The  elections  and  the  methods  of  appointment  in  the 
boroughs,  (from  wliicli  members  of  Parliament  were  sent,) 
were  even  more  corrupt  and  exclusive  than  any  other  part  of 
the  administration.  The  outrageous  monopoly  of  the  fran- 
chise, in  a  few  hands,  defeating  the  fair  expression  of  the 
better  public  sentiment  at  the  elections,  made  the  franchise 
venal  beyond  all  examj)le  in  history.  Parhament  was  prac- 
tically controlled  by  a  few  great  families.  Out  of  a  population 
of  about  8,000,000  there  were  scarcely  160,000  legal  voters. 
I  can  give  space  for  only  slight  illustration  of  borough  pohtics. 
In  the  boroughs  of  Buckingham  and  Bewdley  the  right  of 
election  was  confined  to  thirteen  persons  ;  at  Bath  to  thirty- 
five  ;  at  Salisbury  to  fifty-six ;  at  Gatton  to  seven  ;  at  Tavi- 
stock to  ten ;  at  St.  Michael  to  seven.  It  would  seem  that 
ninety  members  of  Parliament  were  returned  by  forty-six 
places,  with  less  than  fifty  electors  each  ;  thirty -seven  membere 
by  nineteen  places,  having  less  than  one  hundred  electors 
each  ;  while  Leeds,  Birmingham,  and  Manchester  had  no  rep- 
resentation whatsoever.  Eleven  members  owed  their  places 
to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  nine  to  Lord  Lonsdale,  eleven  to 
Lord  Darlington  ;  several  lords  had  six  members  each  ;  and 
members  were  actually  holding  their  seats  in  the  Commons 
under  claim  of  hereditary  right. 

"  Boroughs  had  been  publicly  advertised  for  sale  in  the 
newspapers  ;  and  there  was  a  set  of  attorneys  who  rode  the 
country  and  negotiated  seats  in  the  most  indecent  manner. ' '  ^ 

The    borough  of  Sudbury  "  publicly  advertised  itself  for 

>  Our  laws  of  1862  and  1866  (12  stat.  p.  596  and  14  stat.  p.  92)  aflford  a 
curious  commentary  upon  official  tenure  in  the  army  and  navy.  Tlic  first 
gave  free  scope  for  the  practice  of  the  very  abuses  of  "vvhich  Geo.  III.  was 
guilty,  and  the  second  brought  us  back  to  the  rule  which  that  king  was 
compelled  to  submit  to. 

'  Walpole's  Memoirs,  Greorge  III. ,  vol.  i. ,  p.  157. 


112  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

sale. ' '  In  tlie  borongli  of  Xew  Slioreliam,  tlie  majority  of 
electors^  calling  itself  tlie  "  Christian  Clnb,"  under  the  guise 
of  cliarity,  were  in  the  habit  of  selling  the  borough  to  the  high- 
est bidder  and  dividing  the  spoils  among  its  members.  The 
prices  generally  paid  are  nDt  given,  but  Mr.  May  says  there 
are  instances  of  a  person  spending  £Y0,000  in  contesting  a 
borough.  The  practice  of  buying  and  selling  boroughs  gave 
a  new  word  to  the  language  and  a  new  calling  in  life — ' '  bor- 
ough-mongers' ' — "  borough-mongering. ' '  Boroughs  were  not 
only  sold,  but  they  were  rented  for  annual  sums  when  the 
member  was  unable  to  buy.  Some  of  the  noblest  men  of  the 
times,  like  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  were  compelled  to  buy  a  bor- 
ough as  the  only  means  of  getting  into  Parliament  with  any 
independence. 

In  1762,  an  act  was  passed  imposing,  for  the  first  time, 
pecuniary  penalties  on  the  offense  of  bribery.  But  it  was  far 
from  being  adequate  for  its  purpose.  The  mayor  and  ten  of 
the  aldermen  of  Oxford  were  imprisoned  in  1768  for  receiving 
bribes  for  the  borough  vote.  But  Mr.  May  says  that  "  while 
in  N^ewgate  they  completed  a  bargain  which  they  had  already 
commenced,  and  sold  the  representation  of  this  city  to  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  .  .  .  and  the  town  clerk  carried 
off  the  books  of  the  corporation  which  contained  the  evidence 
of  the  bargain  ;  and  the  business  was  laughed  at  and  for- 
gotten. " 

The  state  of  things  in  the  boroughs  and  local  districts  of 
Scotland,  was  no  better.  There  property,  revenues,  franchises, 
and  patronage  were  vested  in  small  self -elected  bodies.  The 
public  property  and  revenues  were  corruptly  alienated  and  de- 
spoiled— sold  to  nobles  and  other  favored  persons  at  inadequate 
prices.  Incompetent  men  and  even  boys  were  appointed  to 
offices  of  trust.  At  Forfar  an  idiot  for  twenty  years  filled 
the  place  of  town  clerk.  "  Lucrative  oflices  were  sold  by  the 
councils.  Judicature  was  exercised  without  fitness  or  respon- 
sibility." ' 

In  Ireland,  if  possible,  it  was  worse.  While  the  corrupt 
proscription  of  the  dominant  party  and  the  Sacrament  of  the 
State  Church  were  in  the   name  of  the  majority  supreme  in 

'  2  May's  History,  470,  471. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAtN".  113 

the  politics  of  England,  in  Ireland  a  despotism  not  less  con*upt 
and  far  more  galling  was  enforced  in  the  interest  of  a  small 
minority  of  the  population.  A  sectarian  creed  excluded  from 
the  franchise  five  sixths  of  the  Irish  people.  In  her  Parharaent 
not  a  single  representative  of  this  vast  Catholic  majority  was 
allowed  a  seat.  Peerages  were  given  almost  exclusively  to 
large  borough-owners,  and  it  would  seem  that  fifty-three  peers 
controlled  the  election  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-tliree  mem- 
bers of  the  Commons. ' 

"  Tv\o  thirds  of  the  House  of  Commons,  on  whom  the  government 
generally  relied,  were  attached  to  its  interests,  by  offices,  pensions,  or 
promises  of  preferments.  .  .  .  Places  and  pensions,  the  price  of 
Parliamentary  services,  were  publicly  bought  and  sold  in  the  market. 
Every  judge,  every  magistrate,  every  officer — civil,  military,  and  cor- 
porate— was  a  Churchman.  No  Catholic  could  practice  law  or  serve 
on  a  jury.  .  .  .  Protestant  Nonconformists,  scarcely  inferior  in 
numbers  to  Churchmen,  fared  no  better  than  Catholics,  .  .  .  be- 
ing excluded  from  every  civil  office,  from  the  army  and  from  corpora- 
tions."' 

The  King  was  himself  a  participant  in  borough  corruption. 
In  one  of  his  letters  to  Lord  j^orth,  in  1779,  he  says  :  "  If  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland  requires  some  gold  bills  for  the 
election,  it  would  be  WTong  not  to  satisfy  him. ' '  Besides  this 
kind  of  cori'uption  at  the  polls,  there  were  other  forms  of  elec- 
tion abuses  with  which  we  are  familiar.  The  use  of  the  minor 
government  officers,  clerks,  and  placemen  as  a  band  of  polit- 
ical regulars,  bound  to  support  their  superiors,  right  or  ^vrong, 
was  in  full  operation.  Speaking  of  such  officers  and  sej-v- 
ants,  Mr.  May  '  uses  language  which  this  generation  of  Ameri- 
cans can  understand  :  "It  was  quite  understood  to  be  part  of 
their  duty  to  vote  for  any  candidate  who  hoisted  the  colors  of 
the  minister  of  the  day.  Wherever  they  were  most  needed  by 
the  government  their  number  was  the  greatest.  The  smaller 
boroughs  were  secured  by  purchase  or  overwhelming  local  in- 
terests ;  but  the  cities  and  ports  had  some  pretension  to  inde- 
pendence.    Here,  however,  troops  of  petty  officers  of  cnstonis 

'  2  Lecky,  247.  '  2  May's  Historj',  pp.  479-482. 

*  1  History,  277,  278. 


lli  CIVIL  SEEVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN". 

and  excise  were  driven  to  the  polls,  and,  supported  by  venal 
freemen,  overpowered  the  independent  electors." 

It  hardly  need  be  added  that  the  dominant  party  of  that  day 
■was  as  exacting  in  local  appointments  as  it  has  ever  been  in  our 
own  times.  Referring  to  city  appointments,  Mr.  May  says  : 
' '  Kone  but  jealous  adherents  of  the  government  could  hope 
for  the  least  share  of  the  patronage  of  the  Crown."'  And 
with  still  another  phase  of  municipal  abuses  then  prevalent  we 
are  equally  familiar,  except  that  we  are  a  little  shy  about  the 
political  use  of  religion,  or  what  passes  for  it. 

"  Generally  of  one  political  party,  the  borough  electors 
exluded  men  of  different  opinions,  whether  in  politics  or 
religion.  .  .  .  Neglecting  their  proper  functions — the 
superintendence  of  the  police,  the  management  of  the  jails,  the 
leaving  and  lighting  of  the  streets,  and  the  suj)ply  of  water — 
they  thought  only  of  the  personal  interests  attached  to  office. 
They  grasped  all  patronage,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  for  their 
relatives,  friends  and  political  partisans,  and  wasted  the  cor- 
poration funds  in  greasy  feasts  and  vulgar  ribaldry.  Many 
were  absolutely  insolvent.  Charities  were  despoiled. 
Jobbery  and  corruption  in  every  form  were  practised.  .  .  . 
Even  the  administration  of  justice  was  tainted  by  susjiicion  of 
political  partiality.  Borough  magistrates  were  at  once  incom- 
petent and  exclusively  of  one  party.  .  .  .  But  the  worst 
abuse  of  these  corrupt  bodies  was  that  which  too  long  secured 
them  impunity.  They  %oere  the  strongholds  of  jparliamentary 
interests  and  corruption. ' '  ^ 

6.  But  tlie  spoils  system  of  that  age  had  yet  other  powers  of 
seduction  and  terror  unknown  in  our  day.  The  same  arbitrary 
authority  which,  in  order  to  strengthen  the  government  or  the 
party,  might  give  places  or  make  removals  anywhere  in  the 
army,  the  navy,  the  Church,  and  the  civil  administral  ion  at  its 
pleasure,  might  also,  in  the  jjlenitude  of  its  authority,  impress 
soldiers  for  the  regiments  and  sailors  for  the  ships — ' '  nay,  we 
even  find  soldiers  employed  to  assist  the  press  gangs  ;  villages 
invested  by  a  regular  force  ;  sentries  standing  with  fixed  bayo- 
nets ;  and  churches  surrounded  during  divine  service,  to  seize 

'  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  48.  '2  May's  History,  464-466. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  115 

seamen  for  the  fleets."  '  And  this  formidable  power  was  ef- 
fectively used  to  influence  elections  and  overawe  the  spirit  of 
independence  and  reform. 

It  was  a  part  of  the  same  system  that  government  could  no 
more  get  along  without  paid  spies  everywhere  than  it  could 
get  along  without  servdle  henchmen  at  every  government 
desk.  "  Throughout  that  period,"  says  Mr.  May,  "society 
was  everywhere  infested  with  espionage."  In  1764,  "  we  see 
spies  following  Wilkes,  dogging  his  steps  like  shadows,  and 
reporting  every  movement  of  himself  and  his  friends  to  the 
Secretaries  of  State." 

In  the  same  spirit,  the  high  officials  of  George  III.  claimed 
the  right,  for  the  protection  of  the  party  in  power,  to  break 
oj^en  and  read  the  letters  of  their  opponents,  while  in  the  mails 
or  pubhc  offices  ;  and  they  did  so  without  shame  or  hesitation. 
They  thought  no  administration  safe  without  the  exercise  of 
this  power.  And  j)erhaps  no  abuse  of  public  authority  did  so 
much  to  arrest  independent  utterance  and  embarrass  that 
organization  and  co-operation  essential  to  crush  so  fearful  a 
tyranny.  Mr.  Pitt  complains  that  even  his  correspondence  with 
his  family  was  constantly  ransacked  in  the  post  office.  Xothing 
written  by  a  political  opponent  of  the  government  was  safe  from 
the  pillage  of  the  post  office  official  and  government  spies. 
And  while  the  Parliamentary  majority  claimed  such  powei-s,  it 
refused  to  allow  its  own  proceedings  to  be  reported.  It  prose- 
cuted or  imprisoned  those  who  attempted  to  furnish  the  people 
with  adequate  reports. 

7.  The  partisan  tyrants  of  these  times  also  sought  to  make 
the  public  press,  then  threatening  to  become  a  dangerous  ene- 
my of  the  spoils  system,  either  its  servant  or  its  victim.  The 
law  of  libel  of  that  day — under  which  any  servile  justice  of 
the  peace  (holding  office  by  appointment  made  by  a  member 
of  the  Cabinet)  could  arrest  any  person  charged  on  oath  with 
a  seditious  libel,  and  according  to  which  juries  were  not  judges 
of  the  fact  of  libel — greatly  favored  such  results. 

Besides  all  this,  Secretaries  of  State — as  the  law  was  inter- 
preted— might  issue  general  warrants  to  search  for  authors, 
printers,  and  publishers  and  their  papers  throughout  the  King- 
'  2  Mays  Historj',  pp.  231,  262. 


116  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

dom.  This  power,  unscnipulously  exercised,  was  sufficient  to 
overawe  any  ordinary  reformer,  and  it  caused  the  imprisonment 
and  financial  ruin  of  not  a  few.  Even  John  Wilkes  had  his 
house  ransacked,  and  was  brought  a  prisoner  before  the  minis- 
ters on  such  a  warrant.  Years  later,  so  fearless  a  writer  as 
William  Cobbett  was  driven  from  England  to  this  country  by 
the  mere  fear  of  its  exercise. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  prove  how  naturally  the  spirit  of 
such  a  system,  and  the  exercise  at  will  of  a  power  so  vast  and 
irresponsible,  developed  in  the  King  and  his  ministers  an  exag- 
gerated idea  of  prerogative  and  official  authority.  It  com- 
pletely blinded  them  to  the  state  of  public  opinion,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  gave  them  the  means  of  carrying  forward  what- 
ever arbitrary  undertaking  they  might  decide  to  enter  upon. 
"  What  a  king  and  ministry  habitually  do,  soon  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  involving  their  rights  and  their  honor. ' ' 

If  in  the  application  of  such  a  system  all  merit  and  all  jus- 
tice among  the  people  might  be  disregarded  ;  if  municipal  cor- 
porations might  be  converted  into  partisan  entrenchments  ;  if 
money  coming  from  taxation  and  from  the  endowments  of 
charity  at  home  could  be  used  in  the  interest  of  the  party 
and  the  ministry — upon  what  theory  could  little  colonial  set- 
tlements along  the  borders  of  the  ocean  and  the  forests  of  a 
remote  continent  expect  any  higher  consideration  for  their 
property  or  their  riglits  ?  Indeed,  the  very  extravagance  and 
the  insatiable  demand  for  offices  and  places  which  such  a  sys- 
tem developed  only  made  those  colonies  the  more  certain  to 
become  its  victims.  They  could  be  outraged  and  pillaged 
without  offending  any  Parliamentary  voter,  except  such  rare 
men  as  Burke  and  Chatham,  who  felt  indignant  when  in  any 
quarter  of  the  world  a  British  subject  was  wronged. 

In  this  view  the  familiar  fact  that  George  III.  personally 
insisted  on  taxing,  coercing,  and  fighting  the  American  colo- 
nies, (when  he  might  have  known  that  the  higher,  if  not  the 
larger,  public  opinion  of  England  condemned  that  policy,)  is 
no  evidence  of  malice  in  the  King  or  his  ministers,  but  only 
shows  the  consequences  to  which  the  spoils  system  of  admin- 
istration, with  its  false  standard  of  official  "right  and  honor," 
had  carried  them. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  117 

"  The  King  contiimed,  personally,  to  direct  the  measures 
of  the  ministers,  more  particularly  in  the  disputes  with  the 
American  colonies,  which,  in  his  opinion,  involved  the  rights 
and  honors  of  his  crown.  .  .  .  The  persecution  of 
Wilkes,  the  straining  of  Parliamentary  privilege,  and  the 
coercion  of  America  were  the  disastrous  fruits  of  the  court 
policy."  *  "  The  colonies  offered  a  wide  field  of  employment 
for  the  friends,  connections,  and  political  partisans  of  the 
liome  government.  The  offices  in  England  available  for  secur- 
ing Parliamentary  support  fell  short  of  the  demand,  and  ap- 
pointments were  accordingly  multiplied  abroad.  .  .  .  In- 
fants in  the  cradle  were  endowed  with  colonial  appointments 
to  be  executed  through  life  by  convenient  deputies."  ' 

Mr.  May  quotes  a  letter  of  a  British  general,  written  in 
1758,  which  says  :  "As  for  civil  officers  appointed  for 
America,  most  of  the  places  in  the  gift  of  the  Crown  have 
been  filled  with  broken-down  members  of  Parliament,  of  bad 
if  any  principles  :  valets  de  chamhre,  electioneering  scoundrels, 
and  even  livery  servants.  In  one  word,  America  has  been 
for  many  years  made  the  hospital  of  England. ' '  Measures 
of  oppression  against  the  colonies  were  so  ingeniously  contrived 
as  to  take  away  their  liberties  at  the  same  time  that  they  made 
more  places  to  be  filled  under  this  voracious  spoils  system  : 
for  example,  in  1774  ^  the  Elective  Council  of  Massachussetts 
was  made  appointable  by  the  Crown,  and  the  selection  of 
judges,  magistrates,  and  sheriffs  was  also  added  to  the  royal 
patronage. 

It  is  a  not  less  interesting  fact  to  us  that,  if  tliis  country  was 
the  place  of  the  most  unprovoked  and  unscrupulous  applica- 
tion of  the  spoils  system,  it  also  affords  about  the  last  illustra- 
tion of  its  extreme  enforcement.*  The  failure  of  the  King's 
policy  against  us  dealt  the  King,  his  party,  and  the  spoils  sys- 
tem a  blow  from  which  they  never  fully  recovered. 

Lord  North's  administration  fell  in  1782,  four  months  after 

'  1  May's  History,  pp.  43,  49.  « 3  May,  529. 

'  14  George  III.,  chap.  45. 

■*  From  Horace  Walpole's  Memoirs  it  appears  to  have  required  al>out 
$6,700,000  in  1788  to  satisfy  promiseo  made  under  that  system  to  American 
traitors,  mildly  called  Roj-alists. 


118  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN"  GREAT  BRITAIlSr. 

the  fall  of  Yorktown.  It  was  succeeded  by  that  of  Lord 
Rockingham,  the  first  Tnini&try  distinctly  pledged  to  admin- 
istrative reform,  or  faithful  to  its  duties,  which  England  had 
ever  seen.  The  leading  friends  of  reform  were  the  leading 
friends  of  America  :  Rockingham,  who  had  declared  the  war 
''wicked,  impolitic,  and  niinous ;"  Burke  and  Chatham, 
whose  noble  defence  of  our  cause  all  the  world  knows  ;  Con- 
way, Barre,  and  others  less  distinguished. 

If  the  hoiTors  of  the  French  Revolution,  late  in  the  reign 
of  George  III.,  arrested  for  a  time  the  cause  of  reform,  we 
shall,  with  that  exception,  find  that  it  made  a  steady  advance 
after  our  independence  was  recognized.  Such,  then,  was  the 
theory  of  the  appointing  power — the  system  of  administration 
— the  moral  tone  of  party  politics— in  England  during  the 
generation  of  Washington,  Madison,  Hamilton,  and  all  the 
founders  of  our  system,  and  even  within  the  lifetime  of  per- 
sons now  living.  It  seems  not  improbable  that  l)ut  for  the 
corrupt  and  prescriptive  system  of  administration  which  pre- 
vailed, our  Revolutionary  War  might  have  been  a  far  less  pro- 
tracted and  costly  struggle. 

Our  fathers  framed  a  system  repugnant  to  that  of  England 
in  some  of  the  principles  of  equality  and  justice  upon  wliicli  it 
rests,  yet  substantially  identical  in  the  arrangements,  metliods, 
and  official  character  required  for  good  administration.  Birth- 
right, privileges,  class  distinctions,  religion.  Church  Establish- 
ments, property,  and  every  element  of  feudalism  they  discard- 
ed, as  foundations  of  government  or  qualifications  for  official 
service.  By  the  strongest  of  all  conceivable  implications, 
they  declared  competency  for  office  to  be  character  and  capa- 
city. Yet,  in  face  of  such  an  experience  in  the  mother  coun- 
try, they  directly  said,  or  provided  for,  almost  nothing  on  a 
subject  so  vital,  beyond  declaring  that  the  President  should 
be  a  native  ;  that  judges  sliould  have  a  fixed  tenure  and  salary 
(provisions  copied  from  English  statutes) ;  and  that  Senators 
and  Representatives  in  Congress  should  be  of  a  certain  age. 
The  States  generally  fell  short  of  even  such  meagre  pro- 
visions. The  nation  and  the  States  alike  left  the  great  and  dan- 
gerous power  of  removal  to  the  merest  implication.  This  is 
not  to  be  mentioned  against  them  as  a  reproach  ;  for  their 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN".  119 

thoughts  were  absorbed  in  the  vital  questions  of  personal  hberty 
and  national  independence.  The  subject  of  good  public  ad- 
ministration, as  one  of  the  vital  and  permanent  conditions  of 
national  peace,  morality,  and  prosperity,  was  only  a  mooted 
question  even  among  the  older  nations  which  had  centuries  of 
misrule  before  their  eyes.  Indeed,  it  could  hardly  be  said  to  be 
before  their  eyes,  for  the  procedure  and  the  corruption  in  the 
great  offices,  like  the  debates  in  Parliament,  had  been  treated 
as  party  or  official  secrets.  There  was  but  little  in  print, 
and  perhaps  nothing  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  from  which 
they  could  be  learned.  It  cost  the  greatest  efforts  and  long 
litigation  to  bring  to  light  abuses  in  the  departments  and  the 
municipalities,  and  the  veil  of  secrecy  is  not  yet  torn  from  some 
parts  of  the  administration  of  the  City  of  London.' 

The  subject  of  administration  had  hardly  been  considered  at 
all  on  this  side  of  the  ocean.  And  in  sparsely  settled  colonies, 
without  great  cities  or  great  fortunes,  or  any  experience  in 
large  public  affairs,  it  is  not  strange  that  no  provision  '  should 
be  made  for  the  character,  capacity,  or  discipline  of  that  great 
army  of  officers,  and  those  vast  and  complex  affairs  which 
were  only  to  exist  in  a  future  generation.  Keed  we  doubt 
that  adequate  safeguards  would  have  been  provided  in  the 
constitution,  had  its  framers  foreseen  the  abuses  of  the  last 
forty  years  ? 

'  At  this  time  (Jan.  16,  1870)  a  proceeding  is  being  taken  before  the 
courts,  in  the  City  of  New  York,  in  order  to  get  at  the  facts  of  habitual  ex- 
tortion and  other  /corruption  in  the  municipal  offices,  which  are  charged, 
and  generally  believed,  to  be,  in  character,  quite  analogous  to  those  pre- 
vailing in  English  cities  a  century  ago. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  REFORM  PERIOD  AFTER  THE  FALL  OF  LORD  BUTE. 

Parliament  first  limits  the  King's  civil  list. — Rockingham  Ministry  in 
1765. — Its  reforming  policy. — Public  opinion  growing  bold  and  exacting. 
— Junius  Letters. — Burke's  reform  bill. — Wilkes. — The  King  caricatured. 
— The  public  press. — Lord  Chatham  and  William  Pitt  as  reformers. — 
Later  progress  of  reform  sentiment. — Monster  meetings  and  petitions. — 
Reform  societies. — Relation  of  American  independence  to  administrative 
reform. — Test  acts. — Rights  ot  Catholics  to  hold  office. — Of  Jews. — Gene- 
ral results  of  partisan  and  religious  tests  for  office. 

On  the  accession  of  George  III.,  Parliament  had,  for  the 
first  time,  assumed  control  over  the  personal  expenditures  (the 
"  civil  list")  of  the  Crown  ;  but  that  servile  body  allowed  the 
law  to  remain  a  dead  letter.  In  less  than  nine  years  the  king 
had  exceeded  the  allowance  by  more  than  £500,000.  The  cli- 
max of  the  last  jihase  of  the  sj^oils  system  in  English  politics 
was  reached  under  Lord  Bute  ;'  and  with  his  fall  the  era  of 
practical  reform  opened.  The  public  opinion  demanding  it 
had  become  bold  and  threatening.  The  theory  of  making  a 
party  of  mere  office-holders  and  favorites  was  at  an  end,  and 
that  of  ruling  through  party  leaders  was  restored. 

In  1Y65,  the  king  was  forced  to  accept,  as  Prime  Minister, 
the  Marquis  of  Eockingham,  the  leader  of  the  opj)Osition, 
whom  he  had  just  dismissed  from  his  lieutenancy,  and,  as  a 

'  The  Union  with  Ireland,  effected  in  1799,  was,  in  a  pecuniary  sense,  one 
of  the  most  corrupt  of  all  the  official  transactions  of  that  generation.  Gov- 
ernment bought  out  the  borough  interests,  openly  treatingpatronage  as  prop- 
erty. The  patrons  of  boroughs  received  £7500  for  each  seat.  Tlie  total 
compensation  for  boroughs  amounted  to  £1,260,000.  It  appears  that  the 
original  estimates  of  expenses  were  as  follows :  Boroughs,  £756,000 ; 
county  interests,  £224,000  ;  barristers,  £200,000  ;  purchases  of  seats,  £75,- 
000 ;  Dublin,  £200,000.  Besides  all  which,  there  were  peerages  conferred, 
places  multiplied,  and  pensions  increased.  Lord  Cornwallis,  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant, most  bitterly  complained  of  the  "  dirty  business,"  and  "  longed  to 
kick  those  whom  his  public  duty  obliged  him  to  court." 


CIVIL   SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN.  121 

Secretary  of  State,  General  Conway,  whom  lie  had  just  de- 
prived of  his  regiment.  It  was  a  condition,  made  by  this  ad- 
ministration, that  military  officers  should  not  be  disturbed  for 
political  reasons.  It  also  compelled  the  king  to  disclaim  the 
old  practice '  of  influencing  members  of  Parliament  by  bribes, 
patronage  or  prerogative.  These  were'  two  great  victories, 
poorly  as  the  king  kept  his  promise.  The  king  *  was  intensely 
hostile  to  the  independent  reforming  spirit  of  his  new  cabi- 
net ;  and,  aided  by  divisions  among  the  Whigs,  was  before 
long  able  to  overthrow  it.  For  ten  more  years,  there  was 
little  apparent  progress,  but  a  public  opinion  was  growing, 
more  enlightened,  more  exacting  and  more  audacious  than  had 
ever  been  known.  For  the  first  time,  the  character  and  the 
practical  methods  of  the  administration  became  a  great  issue 
before  the  people.     The  public  was  angry  over  abuses. 

The  first  of  the  letters  of  Junius  appeared  in  January,  1769, 
and  that  to  the  king,  the  boldest  and  most  defiant  ever  written 
by  a  subject,  before  the  end  of  the  year.  So  audacious  did  the 
popular  protest  against  the  royal  spoils  system  become,  that 
Mr.  !Nast,  in  our  day,  has  not  dealt  more  boldly  with  high 
officials.  One  caricature  sold  upon  the  streets  represented  a 
high  official  wheeling  the  king  on  a  barrow  %vitli  his  croAvn, 
with  the  legend  "  what  a  man  buys  he  may  sell  ;"  and,  in 
another,  the  king  was  exhibited  on  his  knees,  with  his  mouth 
open,  into  which  Warren  Hastings  was  pitching  diamonds. 
In  the  law  courts,  Wilkes  recovered  £4000  against  the  Secre- 
tary of  State,  who  had  caused  his  house  to  be  ransacked  under 
a  general  search  warrant.  It  would  require  far  too  much 
space  to  trace,  historically,  the  many  reform  measures  by 
which  abuses  existing  in  the  early  part  of  this  reign  have  been 
removed  or  reduced.  A  brief  outline  must  therefore  suffice. 
The  days  for  sneering  at  reforai  and  for  scorning  the  higher 
sentiment  of  the  nation  pretty  much  expired  with  Walpole 
and  his  generation.     But  the  details  of  pubhc  abuses  had  not 

'  The  celebrated  Lord  Mansfield  defended  the  king. 

"  The  king  treated  reformers  as  rebels  against  the  laws,  just  as  modem 
partisan  tyrants  treat  them  as  rebels  against  the  party  ;  and,  in  a  proc- 
lamation, he  warned  the  people  "  against  rebellious  insurrection"  to  resist  or 
reform  the  laws. 


122  CIVIL  SEK7ICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

even  yet  become  mucli  known  to  tlie  people.  They  had  no 
definite  theories  about  the  best  way  of  reforming  tlie  exercise 
of  the  appointing  power.  They  knew  that  fearful  abuses 
existed,  and  they  had  three  distinct  convictions  on  the  sub- 
ject :  that  the  corruption  and  favoritism  in  the  administration 
were  serious  matters  ;  that  their  rulers  ought  to  give  their  atten- 
tion to  them  ;  and  that  they  might  be  reformed.  The  greatest 
and  most  practical  statesmen  of  the  age  held  the  same  views. 
From  that  day  to  this,  administrative  measures  in  England 
have  been  recognized  as  among  the  most  vital  questions  in 
her  affairs  ;  and  "the  reputation  of  nearly  every  eminent 
statesman  since  the  time  of  Lord  North  has  largely  rested 
upon  his  efforts  in  connection  with  administrative  reform. 
Administration  has  been  converted  into  a  sort  of  science, 
which  all  the  leading  statesmen  have  studied.  The  bold  and 
brilliant  speeches  and  writings  of  Mr.  Burke  called  attention 
to  the  details  of  official  abuses.  The  struggle  for  reform  was 
opened  in  Parliament  by  Lord  Chatham  in  1T66,  the  same  year 
in  which  he  spoke  against  the  Stam23  act,  and  openly  "  rejoiced 
that  America  had  resisted. ' '  Seeing  the  angry  mood  of  the 
nation,  he  declared  that  "  before  the  end  of  the  century,  Par- 
liament will  reform  itself  from  within,  or  be  reformed,  with 
a  vengeance^  from  withou  t. ' ' 

The  press,  by  reason  of  Parliament,  being  too  cornipt  to 
represent  the  higher  sentiment,  had  suddenly  become  a 
j)olitical  power  ;  and,  repeating  the  thoughts  of  the  great 
statesmen,  and  giving  voice  to  the  popular  indignation,  it 
awed  both  the  Parliament  and  the  king.  In  1780,  "nu- 
merous public  meetings  were  held,  associations  formed, 
and  petitions  presented,  in  favor  of  economical  reforms, 
complaining  of  the  undue  influence  of  the  Crown,  and  of 
the  patronage  and  corruption  by  which  it  was  maintained. ' '  * 
It  was  this  aroused  feeling  among  the  people  which  encouraged 
Mr.  Burke  *  to  bring  forward  his  celebrated  reform  bill,  the 

'  1  May's  History,  p.  54. 

"  Lord  Talbot,  about  the  same  time,  had  tried  to  carry  through  a  bill  for 
reducing  the  officers,  sinecurists  and  various  expenses  ia  the  king's  house- 
hold ;  but  Mr.  Burke  said  he  failed,  "  because  the  king's  turnspit  was  a 
member  of  Parliament." 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  123 

next  year,  which  was  supported  in  a  speech  by  the  younger 
Pitt.  It  provided  both  for  a  reduction  of  officers  and  a 
diminution  of  expenses  in  many  .ways. 

"I  bent  the  whole  force  of  my  mind  (Mr.  Burke  says)  to  the 
reduction  of  that  corrupt  influence  which  is,  in  itself,  the  perennial 
spring  of  all  prodigality  and  of  all  disorder  ;  which  loads  us  with 
.  .  .  debt,  takes  vigor  from  our  army,  wisdom  from  our  council  .  .  . 
and  authority  and  credit  from  the  more  venerable  parts  of  our  con- 
stitution." 

Mr.  Pitt  (the  younger)  brought  forward  a  reform  bill  of 
his  own,  in  1783,  and  twice  pressed  it  upon  Parliament. 
When  coming  to  office  himself  in  the  same  year,  he  was  (in 
his  own  person)  true  to  his  principles  ;  for  though  so  poor 
that  he  had  an  income  of  only  £300  a  year,  he  declined  the 
sinecure  perquisites,  amounting  to  £3000  a  year,  which  the  old 
spoils  system  tendered  him.' 

About  the  same  time  the  Duke  of  Richmond  also  brought 
in  a  reform  bill,  and  the  people  began,  for  the  first  time  at 
this  period,  to  petition  on  a  large  scale  for  the  removal  of 
abuses  ;  earnestly  calling  for  "  parliamentary  and  economical 
reform."  One  of  these  petitions  from  Yorkshire  was  signed 
by  eight  thousand  freeholders,  and  one  from  "Westminster  by 
five  thousand  electors.  It  required  some  boldness,  under  the 
law  of  libel  of  those  days,  to  sign  an  outspoken  j)etition. 

Instead  of  fearing  to  promote  any  refoi*m,  lest  the  party 
majority  should  be  offended  (as  has  so  generally  and  so  unfor- 
tunately been  the  case  with  our  party  managers),"  the  great 
party  leaders  of  that  day  (1780)  formed  a  society  "  to  instruct 
the  people  in  their  political  rights  and  to  forward  the  cause  of 

'  But  William  Pitt,  as  Prime  Minister,  made  a  partisan,  though,  strictly 
speaking,  not  a  corrupt,  use  of  titles,  decorations  and  patronage,  to  an  ex- 
tent that  has  not  been  equalled  by  any  of  his  successors. 

'  English  writers  of  the  most  liberal  views,  and  who  are  ready  to  do  jus- 
tice to  our  public  virtues,  cannot  forbear  noticing  this  habitual  cowering  to 
the  party  majority.  Speaking  of  English  public  opinion,  in  this  decade, 
Mr.  ]V[ay  says  (2  History,  p.  215):  "Opinion — free  in  the  press,  free  in 
every  form  of  public  discussion — has  become  not  less  free  in  society.  It  is 
never  coerced  into  silence  or  conformity,  as  in,  America,  by  the  tyrannous  force 
of  a  majority." 


124  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT  BRITAIN". 

parliamentary  reform. ' '  Among  its  early  members  were  tlie 
Duke  of  Richmond,  Mr.  Fox,  Mr.  Pitt,  and  Mr.  Sheridan. 

"  Political  societies  and  clubs  took  part  in  the  creation  of 
public  opinion,  and  .  .  .  proved  that  Parliament  would  soon 
have  to  reckon  with  the  sentiments  of  the  people  at  large. ' '  * 

But  it  was  the  fall  of  Lord  North  in  1782,  and  the  coming  in 
of  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  a  second  time,  as  Prime  Min- 
ister (under  whom  Burke  held  office),  which  dealt  the  heaviest 
blow  the  spoils  system  had  ever  received  ;  a  blow  from  which 
it  has  never  recovered.  "It  must  be  added,  to  the  lasting 
honor  of  Lord  Pocldngham,  that  his  administration  was  the 
first  which  during  a  long  course  of  years  had  the  courage  and 
the  virtue  to  refrain  from  bribing  members  of  Parliament. 
.  None  of  his  friends  had  asked  or  obtained  any  pen- 
sion or  any  sinecure,  either  in  possession  or  in  reversion."  ^  It 
was  then  that  the  proud  king  felt  so  humiliated,  that  he  or- 
dered his  yacht  ready  with  a  view  of  leaving  the  country. 
Parliament  was  overawed  by  the  stern  tone  of  public  opinion. 
Mr.  May  thinks  that  bribery  of  its  members,  with  money, 
"did  not  long  survive  the  ministry  of  Lord  North,"  and 
Mr.  Green  says  it  then  ceased  altogether.  The  new  adminis- 
tration declared,  as  part  of  its  policy,  "  independence  to 
America^  abolition  of  offices,  the  exclusion  of  contractors 
from  Parliament,  and  the  disfranchisement  of  revenue  offi- 
cers ;"  and  this  policy  was  carried  out.  "  Many  useless  offices 
were  abohshed,  restraints  were  imposed  on  the  issue  of  secret- 
service  money,  the  pension  list  was  diminished,  and  guaran- 
tees were  provided  for  a  more  effectual  supervision  of  the 
royal  expenditures."^  And  thus  was  our  independence  a  twin 
birth  with  administrative  reform  in  the  mother  country. 

The  effect  of  such  measures  and  of  such  a  public  senti- 
ment upon  Parliament  had  been  great.  In  the  time  of 
George  11. ,  there  had  been  two  hundred  and  fifty-seven  place- 
men in  that  body,  exclusive  of  army  and  navy  officers,  but  at 
this  time  they  had  fallen  to  less  than  ninety.  That  venal  but 
tyrannical  body  wliicli,   as  late  as  1771,  had  issued  a  proc- 

'  Green's  History,  p.  738. 

*  Macaulay's  "  Essay  on  Lord  Chatham,"  pp.  172  and  178. 

*  May's  History,  vol.  i.,  pp.  61  and  199. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  125 

lamation  forbidding  the  publication  of  its  debates — had 
brought  printers  to  its  bar,  on  tlieir  knees — had  sent  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  London  to  the  Tower — was  now  compliant  in  the 
presence  of  that  indignant  sentiment  of  the  nation  which 
fiercely  demanded  publicity  and  reform.  "  The  public  ex- 
penses were  reduced  and  commission  after  commission  was 
appointed  to  introduce  economy  into  every  department  of  the 
public  service  .  .  .  Credit  was  restored.  The  smuggling 
trade  was  greatly  reduced."  ' 

The  demand  for  reform  continued  to  spread  more  and 
more  widely  among  the  people.  And,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
reaction  caused  by  the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution, 
results  attained  only  in  this  decade  might,  perhaps,  have  been 
reached  a  half  a  century  ago.  As  early  as  1795,  political 
meetings  were  held  at  which  150,000  persons  are  said  to  have 
been  present,  and  at  which  universal  suffrage  and  parliamen- 
tary reform  were  demanded.  In  1797,  a  reform  of  the  bor- 
ough system  was  urged  in  Parliament  by  Lord  Gray,  but  it 
was  not  can-ied  until  1832,  when  he  was  Prime  Minister. 

The  corporation  and  test  acts — making  the  Sacrament  of 
the  Church  of  England  a  qualification  "^  for  office — lingered  oh 
the  statute  books  until  1828,  and  Lord  Eldon  opposed  the 
repeal  to  the  last.  Because  the  partisan  t}Tanny  of  our  day 
has  only  had  the  courage  to  deprive  those  in  the  public  service 
of  reasonable  liberty  of  speech,  we  must  not  forget  that,  in 
these  earlier  times,  the  same  tyranny  was  extended  both  to 
the  public  press  and  to  the  assemblies  of  the  people.  It  was 
the  theory — and  for  a  long  period  the  fact — that  there  was 
little  more  liberty  to  criticise  the  acts  of  government  on  the 
part  of  those  beyond  the  j^ublic  service,  than  on  the  part  of 
those  within  it.  It  was  against  what  remained  of  this  official 
oppression,  that  the  fierce  and  trenchant  invective  of  Junius, 
the  boldness  and  adroitness  of  Wilkes,  the  patriotic  eloquence 
of  Erskine,  and  the  majestic  justice  of  Camden  were  so  effective. 
They  seriously  crippled  an  ovei*shadowing  despotism  ;  which, 
however,  was  not  wholly  renuved  until  the  present  century. 

'  Green's  History,  pp.  756  and  757. 
*  "  To  make  the  symbols  of  atoning  grace. 
An  office  key  and  pick-lock  to  a  place." 

9 


^^  ^. 


126  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

For,  wlien  neither  courts  nor  juries  would  longer  sustain 
it,  and  high  officials  dared  not  act  under  restrictive  stat- 
utes still  in  force  (which  they  were  too  partisan  to  have  re- 
pealed), the  old  spirit,  just  as  hostile  to  popular  intelhgence  as 
to  popular  action,  found  utterance  in  the  form  of  taxation. 
And  it  was  not  until  1853  and  1855  that  the  advertisement 
duty  and  the  newspaper  stamp  were  taken  away.  The  duty 
on  paper  did  not  fall  until  six  years  later. 

It  was  not  until  1829  that  belief  in  the  Catholic  ci-eed 
ceased  to  disqualify  a  man,  generally,  for  office.  In  that  year, 
Sir  Kobert  Peel  carried  a  reform  bill,  which  removed  that 
test,  opening  Parliament  and  all  political  and  judicial  offices, 
national  and  municipal,  to  the  Catholics,  except  that  of  Re- 
gent, Lord  Chancellor,  and  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  But 
that  precious  piece  of  property,  the  patronage  of  the  State 
Church,  was  sacredly  reserved.  Here  again  the  venerable 
Lord  Eldon  led  the  opjDosition,  but  he  was  compelled  in  that 
year  to  see  Catholic  peers  take  seats  which  had  been  vacant  for 
generations.  The  Jews  were  now  the  only  persons,  unable  by 
reason  of  their  opinions,  to  hold  office,  civil,  military  or  cor- 
porate. An  effort  to  emancipate  them  failed  in  1830.  In  1845 
they  were  allowed  to  hold  corporate  offices  ;  and  finally,  in 
1860,  a  roundabout  way  was  provided  for  Jews  to  come  into 
the  House  of  Commons.  Only  in  so  late  times  did  England 
remove  the  official  test  of  opinion  and  grant  such  limited  meas- 
ure of  justice  and  liberty  ;  while  we  proclaimed  them,  without 
limitation,  at  our  national  birth.  Yet  it  is  one  of  the  anom- 
alies of  national  development  that,  in  this  decade,  opinions  are, 
practically,  a  pervading  test  for  subordinate  office  with  us, 
while  in  England  not  opinion,  but  personal  merit  alone,  is  that 
test.  Xever  have  efforts  been  made  on  a  scale  so  large, 
in  forms  so  varied,  or  with  a  perseverance  so  great,  to  keej) 
administrations  in  power  by  patronage,  to  enforce  opinions  by 
official  influence,  or  to  strengthen  creeds  by  a  monopoly  of 
office.     In  these  records,  we  see  their  futility  and  their  fate. 

For  what  but  these  have  been  the  results  ?  Administrations 
struck  dowTi  by  the  popxilar  verdict  against  the  very  favorit- 
ism and  corruption  on  which,  they  leaned  ;  Ireland,  to-day, 
more    overwhelmingly  Catholic  .than  ever  ;    the  Jews  more 


tt  *MMITH  WASHINGTON  SQR. 
CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  127 

than  ever  numerous,  respected  and  prosperous  ;  Dissenters 
grown  to  be  more  than  half  of  the  people  of  England  ;  the  old 
official  system  detested  and  abandoned,  and  the  memory  of  its 
champions  held  in  execration  ;  the  government  of  England  it- 
self, under  the  forms  of  a  monarchy,  closely  approximated  to  a 
republic,  toward  which  it  is  slowly  drifting. 


CHAPTEE  XI. 

THE  IMPEOVED  CONDITION  AFTER  THE  FALL  OF  LORD  NORTH. 

The  Partisan  system  in  last  part  of  reign  of  George  III. — ^lembers  of  Parlia- 
ment secure  patronage. — The  higher  public  opinion  asserts  itself. — Vari- 
ous reforms. — Clerks  no  longer  mere  department  employes. — Freedom 
of  elections  protected. — Those  in  the  public  service  disfranchised. — Office 
brokerage  prohibited. — Legislation  against  it  stringent  and  comprehen- 
sive.— Drastic  bribery  laws. — British  legislation  compared  with  American. 
— Severe  laws  against  official  abuses  in  India. — Superannuation  allowances 
and  their  effect. 

We  liave  seen  that  the  fall  of  Lord  Xortli  and  tlie  inde- 
pendence of  America  mark  the  period  when  the  jiower  of  the 
higher  public  opinion  began  to  be  felt  in  the  departments  and 
feared  by  the  executive  and  by  Parliament.  With  some  in- 
terruption by  George  III. ,  party  government  prevailed  during 
the  residue  of  his  reign.  Pecuniary  corruption  and  aristo- 
cratic supremacy  were  steadily  decreasing,  and  patronage  was 
dispensed  with  a  more  and  more  strict  regard  to  partisan  in- 
terests. The  mental  derangement  of  the  king  and  the  grow- 
ing political  activity  and  enlightenment  of  the  times  facili- 
tated the  transfer  of  power  and  patronage  from  the  executive  ; 
and  Parliament  was  able  to  appropriate  what  the  executive 
lost,  "  Members  of  Parliament  eagerly  sought  the  patronage  of 
the  Crown."  '  The  party  leaders  intliat  body  promised  patron- 
age to  their  friends  in  the  House,  as  well  as  out,  in  return 
for  support.  And  when  these  leaders  were  called  into  the  cabinet, 
(as  one  party  or  the  other  became  dominant),  they  performed 
their  part  of  the  bargain,  and  the  elections  in  boroughs  and  muni- 
cipalities felt  the  consequences.  In  that  age,  the  basis  of  a  call  to 
the  cabinet  was  party  influence  in  Parliament  and  in  the  bor 
oughs,  and  such  influence  was  generally  measured  by  the  num- 
*  1  May's  History,  p.  18. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  129 

ber  of  pensions  and  titles  promised  to  fellow  members  and 
constituents.  It  is  plain  that  this  practical  working  of  party 
government  tended  to  make  the  administration  intensely  parti- 
san and  to  concentrate  all  patronage  in  the  hands  of  members 
of  Parliament.  That  tendency  continued  almost  unchecked 
during  the  residue  of  this  reign.  The  people,  generally,  did 
not  at  that  time  see  that  the  great  contest  in  which,  after  a 
struggle  for  centuries,  they  had  destroyed  monopoly  and 
tyranny  in  the  civil  service  on  the  part  of  the  king  and  his 
ministers,  was  about  to  be  succeeded  by  a  contest,  hardly  less 
formidable,  with  the  same  monopoly,  which  was  then  being 
usurped  by  members  of  Parliament.  In  the  public  eye,  Par- 
liament, rather  than  the  executive,  was  the  poi3ular  body  and 
stood  for  liberty  and  justice  ;  and  therefore  its  silent  and 
steady  usurpation  was  less  noticed.  "\Ve  shall  find  that  this 
new  parliamentary  monopoly  of  the  appointing  jjower  gained 
strength  for  about  half  a  century,  when  it  had  become  an 
ojDpressive  and  demoralizing  tyranny,  against  which  the  higher 
pifblic  opinion  then  began  to  make  open  war.  It  is  in  this  pe- 
riod between  1800  and  1853  that  the  administrative  situation  in 
Great  Britain  was,  in  its  general  features,  most  analogous  to 
what  our  own  has  been  during  the  last  fifty  years,  except  that 
there  a  steady  improvement  was  taking  place.  There  the  plane 
of  advance  was  slowly  rising  (but  not  so  rapidly  as  public  intel- 
ligence and  virtue),  while  with  us  it  was  slowly  falling.  To 
make  the  nearest  accordance,  the  order  of  time  must  be  revereed 
in  one  country.  Among  the  greater  obstacles  to  reforn^  in 
both  countries  was  a  monojioly  of  patronage  in  the  hands  of 
membere  of  the  legislature.  In  Great  Britain,  as  with  us, 
the  contest  was  really  between  the  people,  standing  for  free- 
dom and  equality,  as  to  sharing  public  service  and  emoluments, 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  members  of  the  legislature  with  some 
high  officials,  claiming  and  enjoying  a  monopoly  of  both,  on 
the  other  side  ;  while  the  executive,  sometimes  favoring  one 
side  and  sometimes  the  other,  failed  to  gain  much  popular  sup- 
port, because  so  rarely  rising  to  a  standard  above  that  of  the 
monopolists  of  whose  encroachments  it  justly  complained.  I 
can  give  but  a  brief  outline  of  the  reforms  made  in  this 
period. 


130  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAm. 

1.  It  would  seem  that,  in  tlie  first  half  of  the  reign  of 
George  III.,  or  perliaps  earlier,  a  practice  had  grown  up  in 
certain  of  the  larger  offices,  without  tlie  aid  of  any  act  of  Par- 
liament, of  providing,  (mainly  by  collections  from  the  salaries 
of  those  in  the  public  service,)  a  fund  out  of  which  those  who 
might  be  disabled  in  the  discharge  of  duty,  or  who  might  re- 
tire after  long  service,  should  receive  an  allowance  for  their 
support.  This  voluntary  action  appears  to  have  been  the  basis 
of  that  pervading  system  of  superannuation  allowances  in  the 
English  service,  to  which  I  shall  more  fully  refer. 

2.  Subordinates  in  departments  elevated  in  rank.  Until 
1810,'  those  employed  in  any  department  appear  to  have  been 
little  more  than  private  clerks  or  employes  of  the  head  of  that 
department.  They  were  not,  in  law,  recognized  as  public 
officials  at  all.  They  were  paid  out  of  a  fund  made  up  of  the 
fees  collected  in  the  department  or  office  ;  and  the  balance  of 
tlie  fund,  like  the  appointing  power  itself ,  was  treated  as  a  part  of 
the  perquisites  of  the  minister  or  head  of  the  office.  It  was  a 
part  of  the  old  spoils  system  which  had  prevailed,  under 
which  offices  and  places  in  the  civil  service  were  official 
property  to  be  sold.  This  statute  seems  to  indicate  that  the 
balance  of  the  fund  above  expenses  is  to  be  paid  into  the 
public  treasury,  and  it  requires  that  any  deficiency  of  the 
fund  to  pay  salaries  should  be  made  up  from  the  treasury, 
thus  making  those  employed  in  the  departments  public  ser- 
vants. It  regulated  pensions  and  allowances  and  required 
annual  statements  of  those  employed  and  of  their  com- 
pensation to  be  laid  before  Parliament.  This  statute,  with 
an  act  of  1816,"  and  some  later  amendments,  made  all  those 
engaged  in  the  established  service  public  officials  with  fixed 
salaries.  Their  dignity  and  self-respect  were  thereby  much 
increased,  and  the  tyranny  and  profit  of  high  officers  were  in 
the  same  degree  diminished, 

3.  Official  interference  with  freedom  of  elections.  The  cor- 
ruption and  partisan  activity  in  the  civil  service,  (caused  by  the 
whole  body  of  inferior  officers,  except  officers  in  the  postal  ser- 
vice, whom  we  have  seen  a  statute  of  Anne  had  prohibited  tak- 

'  Statute  of  50  George  III.,  chap.  117.  "  50  George  III.,  cli.  46. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  131 

ing  any  part  in  elections,  being  in  confederacy  with  members 
of  Parliament  and  other  high  officials,  by  whom  they  were  in 
great  measure  appointed),  and  the  coercion  of  elections  which 
was  a  natural  consequence,  were  too  great  to  be  longer  en- 
dured. All  milder  remedies  having  failed,  the  disenfranchise- 
ment  of  these  in  minor  offices  seemed  to  be  the  only  effective 
remedy.  An  act  passed  in  1782  '  is  entitled  "  An  act  for  bet- 
ter securing  the  freedom  of  elections,  .  .  .  by  disabling 
certain  officers  from  giving  their  votes,"  etc.  It  provides 
that  "  no  commissioner,  collector,  supervisor,  ganger,  or  other 
officer  or  person,  whatsoever,  concerned  or  employed  in  the 
charging,  collecting,  levying,  or  managing  the  duties  of  excise, 
.  or  concerned  or  employed  in  the  charging,  collect- 
ing, levying,  or  managing  the  customs,  ...  or  any  of 
tlie  duties  on  stamped  .  .  .  parchment  and  paper,  .  . 
or  of  the  duties  on  salt,  .  .  .  windows  or  houses,  nor  any 
postmaster,  postmaster-general,  or  his  deputy  or  deputies,  nor 
any  person  employed  under  him  or  them,  .  .  .  shall  vote 
for  members  of  Parliament.  .  .  . "  The  number  of  per- 
sons thus  disfranchised,  and  the  great  check  put  upon  official 
dictation,  at  elections,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  one 
of  the  four  schedules  of  duties  attached  to  a  customs  revenue 
law,  of  1809,  defining  the  articles  to  be  taxed,"  fills  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  closely  printed  pages  of  the  act,  making 
the  bewildering  number  of  more  than  two  thousand  separate 
classes  of  customs  duties  to  be  collected.  All  officers  required 
for  such  a  vast  service  are  of  course  in  addition  to  those  in  the 
inland  revenue  and  post  office  service,  which  were  also  dis- 
franchised. Such  was  the  result  in  England,  before  the  adop- 
tion of  our  constitution,  of  the  indignation  of  lier  people 
aroused  by  the  same  abuse  against  which  we  now  more  and  more 
protest,  under  the  name  of  interference  with  local  elections,  by 
custom-house  and  other  officials.  And  thus  members  of  Par- 
liament, having  neither  the  disinterestedness  nor  the  patriotism 
required  to  refrain  from  making  use  of  the  unworthy  subordi- 
nates, whose  appointment  they  had  procured,  for  the  purpose 
of  coercing  their  own  election,  and  not  being  able  to  withstand 

'  22  George  III.,  chap.  41.  »  49  George  III.,  chap.  98. 


132  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

a  non-partisan  public  opinion  whicli  demanded  tlie  removal  of 
that  abuse,  instead  of  attempting  to  justify  it,  as  has  too  often 
been  the  case  in  our  day,  boldly  disfranchised  the  whole  body 
of  subordinates  in  the  executive  dej^artment.  They  greatly 
limit  the  abuse  on  the  side  of  the  minor  officials,  while  cun- 
ningly preserving  their  usurped  patronage  and  retaining  the 
full  measure  of  the  evil  on  their  own  side.  Whether  the  rem- 
edy was  the  best  practicable  or  not,  it  shows  a  stern  determina- 
tion to  have  an  end  of  a  great  public  evil ;  and  the  act  is  fur- 
ther worthy  of  notice  as  being,  perhaps,  the  first  (since  the  cel- 
ebrated statute  of  Ricliard  II.)  which  aims  directly  at  raising 
the  character  of  the  civil  service.  And  I  may  add  that  both 
the  great  parties  in  England  found  it  necessary  to  maintain  tliis 
restriction  until  July,  1868,  wlien  the  salutary  effects  of  intro- 
ducing iJie  merit  system  (that  is,  examinations  and  competi- 
tions) made  it  safe  to  restore  the  franchise  to  all  those  officers." 
In  that  year  it  was  restored ;  and  public  officers,  clerks,  and 
employes  in  Great  Britain  can  now,  as  freely  as  any  other  per- 
sons, vote  at  all  elections.  Having  come  into  the  public  ser- 
\dce  on  their  own  merits,  and  holding  their  places  by  no  tenure 
of  servility  to  any  high  official  or  domineering  party  leader, 
ihey,  like  other  citizens,  vote  or  decline  to  vote,  with  entire 
freedom,  of  whicli  no  one  complains. 

4,  Sale  and  Ijroherage  of  offices.  But  even  when  deprived 
of  the  right  of  voting,  those  in  the  public  service  might  in- 
trigue and  bargain  for  promotions  and  for  increase  of  salaries. 
Those  not  in  the  public  service  might  promise  votes  and  elec- 
tioneering work  for  aiopointments  in  the  gift  of  members  of 
Parliament.  An  act  of  1809  *  is  entitled  "  An  act  for  the 
further  j^revention  of  the  sale  and  brokerage  of  offices." 
It  re-enacts  the  i^rohibitions  of  the  law  of  Edward  YI. 
(already  referred  to),  and  such  prohibitions  are  extended 
to  nearly  all  officers.  How  thoroughly  it  deals  with  the 
subject  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  jjrovisions  :  Any 
one  is  made  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor  who  shall  give  or  assist 
to  give  any  money   or  thing  of  value,     ...     or  prom- 

49  George  III.,  chap.  12G,  and  chap.  218,  §  3. 
*  31  and  33  Vict.,  chap.  73,  and  ace  37  and  88  Vict.,  chap.  22. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  133 

ise  to  give  any,  .  .  .  "  for  any  office,  commission,  place, 
or  emplojTiient, "  or  .  .  .  "for  any  appointment  or 
nomination  or  resignation  thereof,  or  for  the  consent  or  con- 
sents or  voice  or  voices  of  any  person  or  persons  to  any  such 
appointment,  nomination,  or  resignation.  .  .  ."  And 
the  same  punishment  is  incurred  by  "any  person  who  shall 
receive,  have,  or  take  any  money,  reward,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, for  any  promise,  .  .  .  assurance  ;  or  hy  anij  way, 
means  or  device,  contract  .  .  .  for  any  interest,  solicita- 
tion, petition,  request,  recommendation,  negotiation,  . 
under  pretence  of  .  .  .  or  in  or  about  or  anywise  touch- 
ing, concerning,  or  relating  to  any  nomination,  appointment, 
deputation^  or  resignation  of  any  such  office,  commission, 
place,  or  employment."  The  keeping  of  any  office,  place, 
or  agency  for  procuring  or  selling  offices,  employments,  or 
places,  "  or  for  negotiating  in  any  manner  whatever  any  ius- 
iness  relating  to  vacancies,  or  in  or  to  the  sale  or  purchase  of 
any  appointments,  nominations,  or  deputation  to,  resig- 
nation, transfer  or  exchange  of  any  offices,  places,  or  employ- 
ments, in  or  under  any  public  department,"  ...  is  also 
made  a  misdemeanor.  The  purchase  and  sale  of  commissions 
in  the  army  upon  the  conditions  and  at  regular  rates  fixed  by 
authority  are  excepted.  It  hardly  need  be  mentioned  that  such 
a  searching  law  is  equally  remarkable  as  illustrating  the  grave 
and  varied  abuses  to  which  a  bad  system  inevitably  leads,  and 
as  declaring  the  stem,  practical  demand  of  the  English  people 
that  these  abuses  shall  come  to  an  end.  How  nmch  further 
this  act  goes  than  any  of  the  laws  we  have,  in  making  criminal 
not  only  barter  and  trade  concerning  salaries  and  officers,  but 
all  negotiations  relating  to  vacancies,  exchanges,  nominations, 
resignations,  removals,  and  transfers — in  short,  every  fonn  of 
corrupt  use  of  the  power  of  appointment  and  confirmation, 
and  every  pernicious  kind  of  solicitation  and  bargaining — 
hardly  need  be  pointed  out. 

But  it  should  be  particularly  noticed  that,  it  is  not  merely 
the  giving,  promising,  or  accepting  of  money  or  a  valuable 
consideration,  which  is  made  penal,  but  the  "  making  or  taking 
of  any  promise  or  agreement  whatever"  of  a  corrupt  nature  as 
a  consideration  ;  and  that  not  for  office  or  place  merely,  but 


134  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

for  any  "  appointment,  nomination,  resignation,  voice,  or  con- 
sent to  any  appointment,  nomination,  or  7'esignation,  or  for 
any  "  negotiation  concerning  an  office  or  appointment  ;"  and 
' '  every  snch  person,  and  also  every  person  who  shall  wilfully 
and  knowingly  aid  such  person,  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a 
misdemeanor. "  It  would  seem  that  such  a  statute  would  reach 
every  form  of  corrujDt  bargaining  and  promising,  in  connection 
with  nominations  and  confirmations,  whether  or  not  any  money 
or  thing  of  value  was  promised  ;  and  therefore  presents  a  sig- 
nificant instance  of  the  more  exacting  demands  of  English  leg- 
islation aimed  at  securing  official  fidelity. 

Indeed,  on  several  of  the  important  points  covered  by  this 
law,  I  believe  our  laws  are  silent.  And  it  is,  to  say  the  least, 
very  doubtful  whether  our  courts  would  feel  anthorized  to  fol- 
low the  English  decisions.  Perhaps  this  statute  is  compre- 
hensive enough  to  make  penal  the  habitual  bartering  and  trad- 
ing which  takes  place  in  regard  to  nominations,  a23pointments, 
and  elections  between  public  officers,  party  managers,  and  pat- 
ronage brokers  in  our  nmnicipalities,  and  sometimes  in  our  leg- 
islatures, if  not  in  higher  quarters.  It  places  the  exacting  de- 
mands of  the  times  in  which  it  was  enacted  in  curious  contrast 
with  the  loose  morality  which  had  before  prevailed  ;  for  it  de- 
clares that,  if  any  one  has  an  office,  which  he  took  "  on  an 
agreement  to  pay  a  charge  or  part  of  the  j)rofits  to  a  former 
holder,"  he  is  still  left  liable  to  make  such  payments  ;  and  it 
further  recites  that  '^  whereas  ...  it  has  always  been 
customary  in  the  appointment  of  the  masters  and  six  clerks 
and  .  .  .  the  examiners  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  of 
Ireland  to  allow  the  having  or  receiving  of  money  or  other  val- 
uable consideration  for  such  appointments  f  and  though  it 
is  a  practice  fit  to  be  discontinued,  etc.,  "  yet  it  is  reasonable 
that  the  persons  .  .  .  who  now  hold  the  said  offices 
should  be  permitted  to  dispose  of  them  in  the  same  manner  f 
and  it  permits  them  so  to  do.  If  we  wonder  at  such  indul- 
gence, we  cannot  wonder  less  at  the  rapid  rise  in  public  senti- 
ment, as  shown  in  the  general  provisions  of  the  law. 

5.  Bribery.    An  act  of  1809  '  shows  how  the  English  Gov- 

»  49  George  III.,  chap.  118. 


CIVIL  .  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  136 

emment  struck  at  the  partisan  spoils  system  throiigli  lier  laws 
against  bribery.  It  is  declared  to  be  "  An  act  to  secure  inde- 
pendence in  Parliament  and  prevent  the  attaining  of  seats  by 
corinipt  practices,"  and  is  a  part  of  the  laws  against  bribery. 
One  of  its  recitals  is  worthy  of  special  notice.  The  Bill  of 
Kiglits  had  declared  that  "  the  election  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment ought  to  be  free."  IS'ow  this  act,  after  reciting  that 
money  .  .  .  and  ^'ojfices,  jylaces^  a.\\(\.  employ ment  are 
promised  and  given  to  secure  elections,''''  declares  that  not  only 
are  such  gifts  hut  "  such  promises  are  contrary  to  the  freedom 
of  elections. '''' 

It  was  a  great  step  in  the  reform  of  tlie  civil  service  to  lay 
doAvn  the  rule  of  law  that  a  promise  of  an  office,  place,  or  em- 
ployment, or  of  official  influence  in  securing  either  under  the 
government,  in  consideration  of  votes  and  work  for  candidates, 
was  as  real  and  dangerous  an  invasion  of  the  freedom  of 
elections  and  as  fit  a  cause  of  punishment  as  to  promise  money 
or  anything  of  direct  pecuniary  value  for  doing  the  same 
thing.  But  this  statute  carries  the  principle  even  further  in 
the  same  direction.  For,  after  declaring  in  the  first  section  that 
it  is  a  penal  offence  to  "  promise  any  sum  of  money,  gift,  or 
thing  of  value"  as  a  consideration  for  procuring  or  endeavoring 
to  procure  the  return  of  any  person  to  Parliament,  it  declares 
in  the  next  section  that  if  ' '  any  j^erson  shall  by  himself  or  other 
person  give  or  procure  to  be  given,  or  pi'omise  to  give  or  pro- 
cure to  he  given,  any  office, place,  or  employment,  to  any  ^;e/'- 
son  or  persons  whatsoever,  ujion  any  express  contract  or  agree- 
ment that  such  pci-son  .  .  ,  shall  by  himself,  or  by  any 
other  person  or  persons,  .  .  .  their  solicitation,  request, 
or  command,  procure  or  endeavor  to  procure  the  return  of  any 
pereon  to  Parliament, "  .  .  .  the  candidate  ^7?c?r/;?^  rt;?^/ 
consenting  to  such  agreement,  is  "  declared  to  be  disabled  and 
incapacitated  to  serve  in  Parliament  /"  and  the  person  prom- 
ised the  said  office,  jjlace,  or  employment  is  declared  incapable 
of  holding  the  same,  and  is  made  liable  to  pay  a  fine  of  £500. 
And  in  addition, ' '  any  person  holding  any  office  under  the  Cro%vn 
icho  shall  give  any  office, place,  or  employment  under  a  contract 
for  procuring  or  endeavoring  to  j)rocure  the  return  of  a  per- 
son to  Parliament,"  is  made  liable  by  the  same  section  to  a  fine 


•136  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

of  £1000,  The  bearing  of  this  provision  npon  such  habitual  ar- 
rangements as  are  made  in  connection  with  our  elections,  for  giv 
ing  offices  and  places  as  a  consideration  for  votes,  resignations, 
and  influence,  must  be  apparent.  Is  there  any  way  of  avoiding 
the  admission  that  in  this  statute,  English  political  legislation 
had  thus  early  reached  a  level  ours  has  not  yet  attained  ?  If 
I  am  not  laboring  under  some  misapprehension,  the  pas- 
sage of  such  a  law  by  Congress  would  not  only  produce  a 
great  sensation  in  the  lower  circles  of  our  politics,  but  would 
be  a  great  and  salutary  reform  in  our  official  life.  And  have 
we  any  right  to  be  surprised  at  the  higher'  moral  tone  and 
greater  efficiency  now  claimed  for  the  British  civil  service, 
when,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  it  has  been  guarded  and 
protected  by  such  salutary  statutes  ? 

A  law  of  1827  '  is  in  the  same  spirit.  That  is  also  a  law  to 
prevent  corrupt  practices  in  elections,  and  for  diminishing 
election  expenses.  It  provides  that  "If  any  person  shall, 
either  during  any  election  of  members  of  Parliament  or  within 
six  calendar  months  before  or  fourteen  days  after 
be  employed  as  counsel,  agent,  or  attorney,  .  ,  ,  or  in 
any  other  capacity  for  the  purposes  of  such  election,  and  shall 
accept  from  any  such  candidate,  or  from  any  person 
whatsoever,  for,  in  consideration  of,  or  with  reference  to  such 
employment,  any  sum  of  money,  retaining  fee,  ojfice,  place, 
or  employmerit,  or  any  pi'omise  or  security  for  any  such 
money,  .  ,  .  offi.ce,  j»>?ac6,  or  employment,  .  . 
such  person  shall  be  deemed  incapable  of  voting  at  such 
election."  These  laws  were  consolidated  and  extended  by 
a  law  of  1854,*  which  declares  that  "every  person  who 
shall  directly  or  indirectly  .  .  .  give  or  procure,  or 
agree  to  give  or  procure,  .  .  .  or  endeavor  to  procure 
any  ojfice,  place,  or  employment  to  or  for  any  voter,  or  to  or 
for  any  person  in  hehalf  of  any  voter,  or  to  or  for  any  other 
person,  .  ,  .  in  order  to  induce  him  to  vote  or  refrain 
from  voting,''''  .  ,  .  is  guilty  of  bribery,  "Every  person 
who  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  such  promises,  ,  .  .  en- 
deavor to  procure  any  such     .     ,     ,     return  or  vote,     ,     , 

'  7  and  8  George  IV.,  chap.  37.  "  17  and  18  Vict.,  chap.  102. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  137 

is  also  guilty  of  bribery."  It  is  further  provided  that  every 
voter  who  shall,  before  or  during  the  election,  .  .  .  agree 
or  contract  for  any  money,  etc. ,  '■^  or  any  office,  place,  or  em- 
ployment for  himself  or  any  other  per 8071  for  voting,  agreeing 
to  lyote,  or  refraining  from  voting  at  any  election, ' '  is  also 
guilty  of  bribery.  This  act  also  places  salutary  restrictions  of 
various  kinds  upon  election  abuses  too  numerous  to  be  detailed 
here.  They  show  that  far  more  consideration  has  been  given 
to  the  subject  in  all  its  bearings  than  it  has  ever  commanded 
in  this  country.  Some  of  the  prohibitions  were  doubtless 
made  more  necessary  for  the  reason  that  the  ballot  was  not  in 
use  ;  but  most  of  them  are  hardly  less  efficacious  since  it  has 
been  introduced.  The  more  important  of  them  relate  to  mak- 
ing merchandise  of  the  appointing  power  independently  of  elec- 
tions. Among  other  important  precautions  of  the  act  are  those 
providing  for  a  public  "  auditor  of  election  expenses,"  before 
whojn  all  such  expenses  must  be  publicly  stated  and  proved, 
and  without  whose  approval  of  them  they  are  neither  binding, 
nor  is  it  lawful  for  the  candidate  to  pay  them.  I  think  there 
can  be  no  doubt  but  these  provisions  as  to  expenses  have  been 
most  salutary  in  England,  and  could  be  adopted  here  with  good 
effect  in  checking  the  secret  and  corrupt  use  of  money  and 
other  bribes  to  effect  elections. 

There  are  strong  reasons  for  thinking  that  these  British 
statutes  have  contributed  largely  to  the  formation  of  that 
salutary  public  opinion  in  Great  Britain — sure  to  attract  the 
attention  of  a  candid  foreigner — which  now  condemns  the 
use  of  authority  over  the  public  service  for  promoting  the  in- 
terests of  ambition  and  partisanship,  almost  as  strongly  as  it  does 
the  direct  use  of  public  money  for  the  same  purpose.  That 
opinion  and  these  statutes  plainly  regard  the  honest  exercise  of 
the  power  of  appointment,  promotion,  removal,  and  employ- 
ment in  the  public  service  as  being  a  duty  as  absolute  as  that 
of  accounting  for  the  taxes  or  guarding  the  treasury. 

It  is  worthy  of  serious  reflection  that  our  Federal  statutes, 
on  the  subject  of  bribery,  though  sometimes  framed  in  language 
which  suggests  a  knowledge  of  the  English  precedents,  have 
stopped  short  of  prohibiting  the  corrupt  use  or  the  j^ronu'se  of 
the  use  of  influence  or  official  authority  to  procure  offices,  places, 


138  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

or  employments  in  tlie  public  service  as  a  consideration  for  votes 
or  support.  And,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  learn,  our  State 
statutes  on  tliese  subjects  go  little  further  than  the  Federal 
statutes  or  are  silent. 

The  United  States  Revised  Statutes,  §  5449,  relating  to 
bribing  judges  ;  §  5450  and  §  5500,  relating  to  bribing  mem- 
bers of  Congress  ;  §  5501,  relating  to  other  officers  generally, 
are  meagre  and  narrow  compared  with  the  British  statutes  ; 
only  prohibiting  the  use  of  "  money  or  any  promise,  contract, 
etc.,  for  payment  of  money,  or  for  the  delivery  or  conveyance 
of  anything  of  value."  Were  these  words  "  delivery  or  con- 
veyance" put  in  connection  with  "  thing  of  value,"  to  make 
it  certain  that  the  statute  should  extend  to  nothing  but  a  bribe 
in  material  property  of  some  kind  ? 

And  such  imjDortant  provisions  as  those  contained  in 
§  1781  to  §  1784,  inclusive,  seem  to  be  framed  in  the  same  re- 
strictive spirit  ;  almost  suggesting  that,  while  it  is  a  grave 
offence  to  receive  a  sum  of  money  for  j^rostituting  a  jjublic 
function,  it  is  no  offence  at  all  to  promise  or  give  an  office  or  a 
promotion  for  doing  the  same  thing.  Indeed,  the  British 
crime  of  "  office  brokerage" — that  is,  the  making  of  merchan- 
dise of  the  use  of  official  authority  and  influence,  in  the  guise 
of  promising  offices  and  places — the  criminality  of  which  has 
long  been  a  salutary  force  for  civil  service  reform  in  Great 
Bi-itain — appears  to  be  unknown  in  our  Federal  legislation.  I 
know  of  no  fact  more  significant  of  the  demoralizing  effects  of 
the  partisan  spoils  system  in  our  politics  than  these  defects  in 
our  laws  ;  unless  it  be  that  public  opinion,  which  so  generally 
fails  to  perceive  that  a  public  officer  has  no  more  right  to  use 
the  authority  than  he  has  the  money,  with  which  the  people  have 
entrusted  him,  to  advance  private  or  partisan  interests  at  their 
expense. 

A  thoughtful  writer  has  declared  it  to  be  important  ' '  that 
the  national  institutions  should  place  all  things  that  are  con- 
nected with  themselves  before  the  mind  of  the  citizen,  in  the 
light  in  which  it  is  for  his  good  that  lie  should  regard  them."  * 
Is  there  not  reason  to  fear  that  these  false  teachings  of  the  laws 
— laws  which  in  their  very  phraseology  reflect  the  domineering 

'  Mill  on  RepresentiXtlon,  p.  173. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN".  139 

supremacy  of  the  partisan  theory  of  polities — are  in  a  large 
measure  responsible  for  the  idea  so  generally  accepted,  that 
there  is  no  right  to  inquire  into  the  abuse  of  official  discretion, 
provided  it  falls  short  of  actual  peculation — that  its  use,  in  the 
selfish  interests  of  a  party,  is  almost  if  not  quite  commendable, 
if  not  a  sheer  necessity  ?  The  simple  facts  are  that  we  now 
tolerate  the  cornipt  use  —  tlie  virtual  bargain  and  sale — of 
power  and  influence  connected  with  office,  precisely  as  I  have 
shown  that  the  English  so  long  tolerated  tlie  bargaining  and 
sale  of  the  offices  themselves. 

The  extent  of  the  differences  1  have  pointed  out,  between  the 
English  and  American  statutes,  as  to  using  public  functions 
and  offices  for  selfish  and  partisan  purposes,  is  emphasized  by 
the  decisions  of  our  courts.  Though  popular  elections  of 
judges  for  short  terms  have  brought  our  judiciary  (in  most  of 
the  States)  sadly  under  the  influence  of  party  politics,  the 
judges  have  still  tried  to  go  beyond  the  language  of  our  stat- 
utes in  aiTesting  official  corruption  ;  and  their  reliance  has  been 
the  English  statutes  and  decisions.  Thus,  where  one  public 
officer  paid  money  to  another  for  a  resignation  in  his  favor, 
the  courts  of  Rhode  Island  could  find  no  law  of  the  State  or  of 
Congress  forbidding  the  abuse,  but  held  the  transaction  illegal 
under  English  precedents.'  The  same  in  substance  was  the 
fact  when  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  declared  void  a 
promise  to  pay  a  percentage  to  one  who  lobbied  a  claim 
through  Congress."  So  when,  in  Xew  York,  one  of  two  can- 
didates for  an  inspectorship  agreed  to  withdraw,  to  support  the 
other  and  to  share  fees,  the  agreement  was  held  void,  not 
because  the  meagre  Xew  York  bribery  law  or  any  American 
law  was  against  it,  but  because  English  statutes  and  precedents 
were  against  it.^  It  was  decided  by  Lord  Thurlow  that  a  suit 
on  an  agreement  to  pay  for  recommending  one  to  an  office 
should  be  enjoined.* 

6.  India  Civil  Service.    The  world  knows  the  fearful  abuses  • 
that  once  pervaded  it.     A  law  of  1784 "  affords  a  further  illus- 

»  Eddy  r.  Capron.  4  Rhode  Island  Rep.,  394. 
«  Trist  r.  Child,  21  Wallace,  chap.  4.'50. 
3  Gray  r.  Hook,  4  Comstock  R.,44y. 

*  Harrington  v.  Chatel,  1  Bro.  cases,  134 ;  Grcame  r.  "Wroiiffhton.  1  Eng. 
L.  and  E.  Rep.  »  24  George  HI.,  ciiap.  25. 


140  CIVIL  SERVICE    IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

tration  of  tlie  painstaking  manner  in  wliicli  English  statesmen 
at  this  jjeriod  attempted  to  bring  jjurity  and  vigor  into  that 
branch  of  administration.  No  law  upon  our  statute  book  will 
bear  any  comparison  with  this  for  the  thoroughness  of  its  deal- 
ing with  the  principal  elements  essential  to  a  good  civil  ser- 
vice remote  from  central  supervision.  I  have  no  space  for  de- 
tails. Promotions  by  favor  and  patronage,  having  resulted 
in  disgraceful  corruption,  inefficiency,  and  injustice,  a  trial 
was  ordered  of  a  system  of  promotion  mainly  based  on 
seniority,  and  to  prevent  abuses,  it  is  declared  that  the  India 
authorities  shall  keep  and  transmit  a  report  to  the  direc- 
tors which  shall  contain  ' '  a  full  and  perfect  entry  to  be  made 
upon  their  minutes,  specifying  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
case,  and  their  reasons  and  inducements  at  large,"  whenever 
in  making  promotions,  they  shall  depart  from  the  general  rules 
laid  down  in  the  law. 

And  I  may  say  that  similar  rules  had  j)revailed  in  some 
of  the  home  offices  of  England,  in  regard  to  promotions,  and 
that  such  records  have  been  the  efficient  means  of  taking  pro- 
motions to  a  considerable  extent  out  of  party  politics  and  per- 
sonal favoritism.  But  seniority  had  its  o^vn  evils.  Another 
section  of  this  law  is  perhaps  more  stringent  and  comprehen- 
sive than  any  we  now  have  against  public  officers  receiving  pay- 
ments or  bribes  ;  and  the  same  remark  may  be  extended  to  the 
followmg  provision  from  the  50th  section  :  "  The  making  or  en- 
tering into,  by  any  officer, "of  any  corrupt  contract  for  the  giving 
up  or  obtaining  or  in  any  manner  touching  or  concerning  the 
trust  and  duty  of  any  office  or  employment  under  the  said 
company  in  the  East  Indies,  .  .  .  shall  be  deemed  and 
taken  to  be  a  misdemeanor."       , 

But  the  55th  section  of  this  act  is  the  most  remarkable,  and  is 
certainly  a  very  unique  and  probably  effective  remedy.  Its  re- 
enactment  by  Congress  would  give  a  shock  to  our  territorial 
officials,  and  it  would  be  so  well  adapted  to  the  cases  of  some 
of  our  Indian  agents  that  I  give  the  material  part  of  it  in  a 

'  §  55.  And  for  the  better  preventing  or  more  easily  punishing  the  mis- 
conduct of  the  servants  in  the  .  .  .  affairs  of  .  .  .  India,  be  it  fur- 
ther enacted,  That  every  person  now  being,  or  who  shall  hereafter  be,  in 
the  service    ...    in   India,  shall,  within  the  space  of  two  calendar 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  141 

note. '  Xot  only  is  the  complete  inventory  in  that  section  re- 
quired to  be  made  under  oath,  but,  at  any  time  within  three 
years,  it  may  be  shown  to  be  false  by  any  one  /  and  in  that 
case,  or  in  case  of  any  misrepresentation  in  it,  or  in  the  public 
examinations  under  oath  concerning  its  contents,  to  which  the 
maker  may  be  subjected,  he  is  not  only  made  guilty  of  per- 
jury, hut  he  also  forfeits  his  entire  fortune.  By  such  laws,  the 
English  people  illustrated  their  resolve  to  have  brought  to  an 
end  that  robbery  and  corruption  in  India  with  which  the  elo- 
quence of  Burke  has  made  the  world  familiar.  It  was  by  such 
laws,  giving  authority  and  permanency  to  the  higher  moods  of 
the  people,  that  great  encouragement  and  strength  were  impart- 
ed, three-quarters  of  a  century  ago,  to  that  reforming  spirit,  in 
which  were  laid  the  deep  foundations  of  those  methods  in  the 
civil  service  which  have  so  much  raised  its  standard  in  the 
present  generation  over  that  of  the  past.  Without  citing  such 
laws,  I  have  feared  I  shall  be  thought  guilty  of  exaggeration 
when  I  come  to  state  how  high  that  standard  now  is. 

7.  Sujperannuation  allowances.     The  next  class  of  the  leg- 
islation of  this  period,  to  which  I  shall  refer,  aims  at  making 

months  after  his  returning  to  Great  Britain,  deliver  in  upon  oath,  bsfore 
the  Lord  Chief  Baron  of  his  Majesty's  Court  of  Exchequer  in  England,  or 
any  two  of  the  other  barons  of  the  said  court  for  the  tiins  being  respectively 
(which  oath  the  said  Lord  Chief  Baron,  and  other  larjns,  are  hereby 
respectively  authorized  to  administer),  duplicates  of  an  exact  particular  or 
inventory  of  all  and  singular  the  lands,  tenements,  hereditaments,  goods, 
chattels,  debts,  moneys,  securities  for  money,  and  other  real  and  personal 
estate  and  property  whatsoever,  as  well  in  Europe  as  in  Asia,  or  elsewhere, 
which  such  person  was  seized  or  possessed  of  or  entitled  unto,  at  the  time 
of  his  arrival  in  Great  Britain,  in  his  own  right,  or  wiiich  an}'  person  or 
persons  was  or  were  seized  or  possessed  of  in  trust  for  him,  or  to  or  for  his 
use  or  benefit,  at  the  time  of  his  said  arrival  in  Great  Britain,  or  at  any  time 
after ;  specifying  what  part  thereof  was  not  acquired,  or  purchased  by 
property  acquired,  in  consequence  of  his  residence  in  the  East  Indies  ;  and 
if  any  of  the  real  or  personal  estate  or  property  of  any  such  person  shall 
have  been  conveyed,  alienated,  transferred,  or  otherwise  disposed  of,  after 
his  said  arrival  in  Great  Britain,  then  such  person  shall  also,  in  and  by 
said  particular  or  inventory,  set  forth  an  accurate  description  and  specifica- 
tion of  all  such  parts  of  his  said  real  or  personal  estate  and  property  as 
shall  have  been  so  conveyed,  transferred,  or  disposed  of,  and  how  and  in 
what  manner,  and  to  whom,  and  at  what  time,  and  for  what  price  consid- 
eration, the  same  shall  have  been  so  conveyed,  alienated,  transferred,  or 
disposed  of  respectively. 
10 


142  CIVIL   SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

the  public  service  more  attractive  through  provisions  for  dis- 
abiUty  and  decHning  years  ;  whereby  also  it  was  believed  that, 
at  least  equal  capacity  and  more  fidelity  might  be  obtained,  at 
a  smaller  expense  to  the  public  treasury.  A  law  of  1809  ' 
provides  for  superannuation  allowances  to  persons  in  the  excise 
service.  It  clearly  defines  the  policy  on  which  it  proceeds  in 
this  preamble:  "Whereas  no  provision  is  made  by  law  for 
persons  employed  in  the  revenue  of  excise  to  the  great  discour- 
agement of  such  officers  and  other  persons,  and  to  the  manifest 
injury  of  the  revenue,''''  and  it  then  authorizes  certain  pay- 
ments out  of  the  public  revenue  to  those  disabled  by  age  or 
infirmity  after  ten  years'  service  ;  the  allowance  being  propor- 
tional to  salary.  Allowances  are  also  to  be  made  to  those  who 
shall  meet  with  accidents  in  the  discharge  of  official  duty.  A 
law  of  1810  "^  shows  a  fact  already  suggested,  that  the  voluntary 
contributions  of  those  in  certain  branches  of  the  service  had 
provided  a  sort  of  retiring  allowance  from  a  fund  in  the  nature 
of  an  insurance  fund.  This  law  provides,  for  the  first  time, 
that  statements  shall  be  annually  laid  before  Parliament  of  all 
persons  in  the  public  service,  giving  their  salaries,  pensions, 
and  allowances,  and  of  all  increase  and  diminution  of  either  ; 
the  act  being  the  equivalent  and  precedent  of  our  statements 
annually  laid  before  Congress.  The  act  also  established  a  sys- 
tem of  superannuation  allowances.  The  next  year,'  the  old 
system  was  abolished  in  the  customs  service,  and  the  ]3ayment 
of  the  allowances,  so  far  as  the  old  fund  was  inadequate,  was 
regularly  charged  upon  the  public  treasury.  The  new  system 
having  been  found  to  contribute  to  efficiency  as  well  as  econ- 
omy, after  long  trial,  has  never  been  very  materially  changed, 
though  modified  from  time  to  time.  The  final  revision  of 
these  laws  was  made  in  1859.*  Under  this  act,  it  is  the  rule 
that,  if  there  has  been  no  more  than  ten  years'  service,  there 
can  be  no  allowance.  The  retiring  allowance,  after  ten  years 
and  before  eleven  years  of  service,  is  at  the  rate  of  ten-sixtieths 
of  the  current  salary  being  paid  at  that  time.  At  eleven  years 
of  service,  the  allowance  is  at  the  rate  of  eleven-sixtieths  of  the 
salary,  and  so  on,  increasing  at  the  rate  of  one-sixtieth  for  every 

'  49  George  III.,  chap.  98.      ^  50  George  III.,  chap.  117. 
'  51  George  III.,  chap.  55.      *  23  Vict.,  chap.  26. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  143 

year  of  service,  after  ten  years,  until  forty  years  of  service,  after 
which  there  is  no  increase.  It  is  also  a  part  of  this  method 
for  securing  faithful  and  efficient  officei-s  that  most  of  the 
salaries  are  regularly  graded,  so  that  there  are  regular  ad- 
ditions, dependent  upon  length  and  efficiency  of  service. 
There  are  also  carefully  guarded  provisions  for  the  granting  of 
discretionary  allowances  up  to  a  fixed  limit,  in  cases  of  excep- 
tional merit,  severe  bodily  injury,  disabihty  in  the  service, 
aholition  of  offices,  and  also  in  cases  of  special  service  of  great 
value  to  the  public  ;  the  same  being,  in  principle,  analogous  to 
pensions  in  military  life.  On  the  other  hand,  a  deduction  may 
be  made  from  such  allowances  against  any  person  when  "  his 
defaults  or  demerits  in  relation  to  the  public  service  .  .  . 
appear  to  justify  such  diminution. ' '  The  act  f  urtiier  provides 
that  thereafter  no  person  (save  a  few  especially  excepted)  shall 
be  deemed  to  be  in  the  civil  service,  in  such  a  sense  as  to  en- 
title him  to  any  superannuation  or  retiring  allowance,  "  unless 
he  has  been  admitted  to  the  civil  service  with  a  certificate  from 
the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  /"  or,  in  other  words,  he  must 
have  got  into  the  service,  not  by  favor  or  influence,  but  through 
a  public  examination  and  open  competition  with  his  fellows 
who  sought  the  same  place. 

I  have  departed  from  chronological  order,  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  together  all  I  have  to  say  upon  this  important  subject. 
It  seems  to  be  demonstrated,  by  the  experience  of  England 
during  three-quarters  of  a  century,  under  such  a  method  (which 
we  have  adopted,  by  applying  it  in  a  very  limited  way  to  the 
judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  in  spirit  in  our  army  and 
navy  pension  system),'  that  the  provision  it  makes  for  old  age 
and  misfortunes,  besides  promoting  a  better  feeling  in  the  ser- 
vice towards  the  State,  and  making  effective  discipline  easier, 
actually  enables  the  State  to  purchase  the  services  of  its  offi- 
cers at  a  less  cost  to  the  public  treasury.  The  allowances  for 
special  merit  and  the  deductions  for  bad  conduct  are  ])ased  on 
records  kept  in  the  departments,  and  they  are  considered  to 
have  a  salutary  influence,  (analogous  to  promotions,  prize 
money,  and  brevet  rank  in  the  naval  and  military  service,)  in 
stimulating  honorable  exertions  in  the  pubhc  interest. 

*  It  has  lately  been  applied  to  the  police  force  of  New  York  City. 


v^ 


CHAPTEK  XII. 

ADMINISTKATION   UNDEK   GEOEGE   TV. 

The  better  public  opinion  a  growing  power  in  politics. — Condition  of  the 
public  service  from  1820  to  1830. — Partisan  system  supreme,  but  pecu- 
niary corruption  has  nearly  ceased  in  appointments. — Bribery  of  members 
of  Parliament  at  an  end,  but  not  of  electors. — Few  removals  for  political 
reasons. — Members  of  Parliament  cling  to  patronage. — ^Inefficiency  and 
supernumeraries  in  the  service. — Members  foist  incompetent  favorites 
upon  the  public  Treasury. — Theory  of  promotion. — The  Treasury  and  its 
authority. — The  existing  abuses  explained. — Great  Reform  Bill  of  1833. 
— Failed  to  breakup  the  partisan  system. — ^The  "Patronage  Secretary" 
of  the  Treasury  and  his  functions. 

Geoege  IY.  came  to  the  throne  in  1820.  In  the  laws  to 
which  I  have  referred,  it  abundantly  appears  that  the  higher 
public  opinion  had  already  achieved  considerable  victories  over 
official  tyranny  and  all  the  corrupt  elements  of  politics.  Of 
that  tyranny  Mr.  May  says  :  ' '  Henceforward  we  shall  find  its 
supremacy  gradually  declining  and  yielding  to  the  advancing 
power  and  intelligence  of  the  people.  .  .  .  From  this 
time  public  opinion  became  a  power  which  ministers  were  un- 
able to  subdue,  and  to  which  statesmen  of  all  parties  learned 
more  and  more  to  defer.  .  .  .  From  the  accession  of 
George  IY.  it  gathered  strengtli  until  it  was  able,  as  we  shall 
see,  to  dominate  over  ministers  and  Parliaments."  '  The 
establishment  of  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowl- 
edge in  1826,  and  of  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian 
Knowledge  soon  after,  mark  the  spirit  of  the  period.  Since 
that  time,  the  utmost  latitude  of  criticism  and  invective  has 
been  permitted.  Prosecutions  for  libel,  like  the  censorship  of 
the  press,  fell  out  of  the  system  of  government.  The  time  of 
George  IY.  (1820  to  1830)  has  a  peculiar  interest,  because, 

»  History,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  201-213. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  145 

during  that  period,  the  element  of  "  spoils"  (in  its  true  defini- 
tion) in  the  partisan  system  of  appointment  almost  wholly  disap- 
peared from  English  administration,  while,  by  a  strange  con- 
trast, the  way  was,  at  that  time,  opened  for  the  spoils  and  pro- 
scriptive  elements  to  come  more  readily  into  our  politics.  For 
the  act  of  1820,  limiting  the  term  of  numerous  officers  to  four 
years,  tended  to  make  the  election  of  the  President  decisive  of 
their  tenure,  and  hence  to  involve  all  those  officials  in  that 
contest,  as  in  a  struggle  for  life.  The  administrative  system  of 
the  two  centuries  then  passed  each  other,  one  on  an  ascending 
and  the  other  on  a  descending  plane.  It  will  be  useful  to  note 
the  character  of  British  administration  at  that  period. 

1.  Bribery  of  members  of  Parliament  was  past ;  though 
bribery  of  electors  continued  a  very  serious  evil  until  after  the 
great  Reform  Bill  of  1832  ;  and  it  was  considerable  until  the 
introduction  of  the  ballot  in  1871,  since  which  the  situation  in 
that  regard  has  been,  I  think,  much  the  same  as  our  own, 

2.  Party  government  becoming  more  absolute  as  the  power 
of  the  Crown  and  nobility  declined,  a  proscriptive  application 
of  the  partisan  system,  everywhere  setting  up  political  opinions 
as  a  test,  prevailed  in  making  all  appointments  and  promo- 
tions. 

3.  Patronage — that  is,  the  right  of  selections  for  official 
places  below  heads  of  departments — was  substantially  in  the 
hands  of  members  of  Parliament ;  and  it  was  freely  used  for 
the  purpose  of  gaining  influence  for  themselves  and  making 
places  for  their  favorites. 

4.  Grave  abuses,  inevitable  from  a  partisan  system  in  tlie 
control  of  members  of  legislature,  existed.  It  caused  a  vicious 
activity  and  rewarded  demoralizing  intrigues  in  Parliamentary 
and  even  in  municipal  elections.  The  election  involved  the 
awarding  of  patronage  ;  and  hence  other  issues  tlian  those  of 
principle  and  the  merits  of  the  candidate  were  often  controlling. 

The  practice  was  also  fatal  to  economy  and  disastrous  to  the 
character  and  efficiency  of  the  public  service.  Legislation  was 
often  controlled  by  patronage,  and  the  departments  were  crowd- 
ed with  incompetents  and  supernumeraries. 

5.  It  had,  by  the  force  of  public  opinion,  without  any  law 
on  the  subject,  come  to  be  the  rule,  almost  universally  acted 


146  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

upon,  that  those  in  the  civil  service  below  ca,binet  ministers  and 
a  few  political  assistants  (less  than  fifty  in  all,  besides  foreign 
ministers  and  certain  consuls)  should  not  be  removed  except 
for  causes  other  than  political  opinions.  To  the  number  thus 
liable  to  be  removed  for  political  reasons,  postmasters  must  be 
added  ;  though  they  were  not  removed  with  the  frequency  of 
such  removals  in  our  service.  There  was  no  practice  of  re- 
moving one  subordinate  merely  to  make  place  for  another. 
These  facts  are  of  some  importance  as  bearing  upon  the  extent 
of  the  implied  power  of  removal  declared  by  the  Senate,  in 
1789,  to  belong  to  our  Executive  ;  the  question  being  whether 
in  principle  it  is  a  power  of  removal  for  cause,  or  upon  caprice 
merely. 

6.  As  those  in  the  subordinate  civil  service  were  no  longei 
allowed  to  vote,  they  were  little  inclined  to  activity  in  party 
politics.  ]^ot  being  liable  to  arbitrary  removal,  they  were  not 
forced  to  fight  at  every  election  in  self-defence. 

7.  No  abuse  corres^^onding  to  what  we  call  "  political  assess- 
ments" existed;  and  I  have  pointed  out  the  reasons  why  it 
never  existed  in  the  English  service.  It  was,  in  more  corrupt 
times,  merged  in  the  greater  evil  of  selling  offices,  tlie  pur- 
chaser insisting  on  getting  a  title  free  of  annual  taxation.  Be- 
sides, for  a  long  time  after  members  of  Parliament  had  become 
the  dominant  power  in  politics,  all  those  in  the  service  below 
heads  of  bureaus,  being  regarded  as  the  servants  of  high 
officers,  were  paid  from  fees,  the  balance  of  which  belonged  to 
the  head  of  the  office.  This  system  did  not  allow  party  assess- 
ments. Perhaps  the  great  officers  contributed  to  election  ex- 
penses from  the  balance  of  the  fee  fund. 

8.  No  examinations  of  any  sort  stood  between  the  appointing 
power  on  the  one  side,  and  the  favorites  urged  upon  it  by  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  and  party  leaders  on  the  other  side.  As  a 
rule,  those  exercising  that  power  were  forced  to  accept  whoever 
was  most  strongly  backed. 

9.  There  was  not  at  this  time,  nor  has  there  been  since,  any 
legislative  authority  in  England,  participating  in  executive 
functions,  which  is  the  equivalent  of  the  power  of  confirmation 
in  our  Senate.  Still,  in  other  ways,  the  party  majority  in  the 
legislature  was  made  perhaps  almost  as  influential  as  with  us. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  147 

The  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  members  of  the  Parliamen- 
tary majority.  What  was  called  The  Treasury  had  (subject  to 
the  influence  of  members  of  Parliament)  something  like  a  con- 
trol over  the  greater  number  of  the  appointments  and  promo- 
tions. There  was  a  permanent  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ;  and 
in  addition  there  were  the  following  (political)  officers  who 
went  out  with  each  administration — viz. ,  tho  fii*st  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  (generally  the  Prime  Minister),  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  and  several  junior  lords,  which  together  consti- 
tute "  The  Treasury.'''' 

Such,  in  substance,  appears  to  have  been  the  condition  of 
the  English  civil  service  in  the  period  from  1820  to  1830  ; 
the  relative  power  of  the  Cro^vn,  the  Cabinet,  The  Treasury, 
and  the  members  of  Parliament  over  appointments  and  pro- 
motions being  very  inadequately  defined,  and  by  far  the 
greater  evil  being  patronage  in  the  control  of  members  of 
Parliament.  The  system  of  administration,  in  short,  was  at 
this  date  the  partisan  system,  in  its  most  characteristic  and  ex- 
treme form,  but  without  the  spoils  element  in  the  mercenary 
or  more  corrupt  sense. 

The  evidence  illustrating  the  abuses  of  patronage  in  the 
hands  of  members  of  Parliament,  to  which  I  might  refer,  is 
so  great  in  variety  and  volume  that  I  have  no  space  to  do  jus- 
tice to  it.  It  is  to  be  found  throughout  tlie  many  thousands 
of  pages  of  evidence  and  reports  which  have  been  printed,  as 
the  results  of  the  numerous  investigations  into  the  working 
of  the  civil  service.  I  submit  a  few  illustrations.  Mr.  Lowe, 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  under  Mr.  Gladstone,  said,  on 
his  examination  before  a  committee  in  1873  (referring  to  the 
partisan  system  after  the  introduction  of  the  merit  system)  : 
that  "  Under  the  former  system,  I  suppose  there  was  nev^er  such 
a  thing  known  as  a  man  being  api^ointed  to  a  clerkship  in  a 
public  office  because  he  was  supposed  to  befit  for  the  place."  ' 
Mr.  Baxter,  the  Financial  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  describes 
that  system  in  his  examination  : — "  Question  4672.  Is  much 
pressure  brought  upon  the  Treasury  with  respect  to  piibhc 
establishments  outside  ?  Answer.  The  most  unpleasant  part, 
as  I  find  it,  of  the  duty  of  the  Financial  Secretary  of  the 
•  Report  Parliamentary  Committee,  1873,  p.  231. 


148  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Treasury  is  to  resist  the  constant  pressure  brought  day  by  day, 
and  almost  hour  by  hour,  hy  raeimhers  of  Parliament  in  order 
to  increase  expenditure  hy  increasing  the  jpay  of  the  classes, 
and  granting  larger  compensations  to  individuals  or  to 
classes  /  .  .  .  and  that  pressure,  which  is  little  known  to 
the  public,  as  I  said  before,  is  the  most  unpleasant  part  of  my 
duties,  and  it  occupies  a  very  great  deal  of  time  which  prob- 
ably might  be  better  spent.  Question  4682.  You  spoke  of 
the  constant  parliamentary  pressure.  .  .  .  Do  you  allude 
to  proceedings  in  Parliament  as  well  as  private  communica- 
tions, or  only  to  the  latter  ?  Answer.  I  did.  .  .  .  But 
of  course  my  answers  might  be  extended  to  those  motions  in 
the  House  which  are  resisted  without  effect  by  the  govern- 
ment, and  which  entail  great  expenditure  upon  the  country. ' '  ' 
In  another  report,  the  head  of  a  large  office  makes  this  state- 
ment : 

"  I  have  made  out  a  return  of  55  persons  .  .  .  who  were 
nominated  by  tlie  Treasury  between  1836  and  1854.  .  .  .  Seve- 
ral of  them  were  incompetent  from  their  ages.  ...  I  found 
some  perfectly  unqualified.  ...  I  also  found  persons  there  of 
very  bad  character  ;  one  person  in  that  list  had  been  imprisoned  by 
the  sentence  of  the  court  as  a  fraudulent  debtor.  .  .  .  Then 
with  regard  to  health,  there  was  one  man  whom  I  was  forced  to  keep 
in  a  room  by  himself,  as  he  was  in  such  a  state  of  health  that  he  could 
not  associate  with  the  other  clerks.  .  .  .  There  was  a  case  in 
our  offices  (Board  of  Audit),  in  which  a  gentleman  was  appointed 
who  really  could  neither  read  nor  write,  he  was  almost  an  idiot,  and 
there  was  the  greatest  possible  difficulty  in  getting  him  out  of  the 
office."  2 

The  report  of  tlie  committee  last  referred  to  declares  that, 
"  where  the  spirit  of  patronage  rules,  the  appointments  are 
given,  to  a  great  extent,  as  a  reward  for  political  services, 
without  the  least  reference  to  the  ability,  knowledge,  or  fitness 
of  the  persons  appointed. ' '  ^ 

In  1855  a  large  volume*  was  printed  by  the  British  Govern- 

'  Parliamentary  Report  of  1873,  p.  248. 

*  Parliamentary  Report  on  Civil  Service,  1810,  p.  176  and  p.  x. 

'  Report  on  Civil  Servic(-,  1880^  p.  287. 

■*  That  volume  will  be  hereafter  cited  as  Civil  Service  Papers. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  149 

ment,  made  up  of  valuable  papers,  containing  the  opinions  of 
many  persons  of  great  experience  in  administration  upon  its 
previous  condition,  and  setting  forth  the  causes  of  existing 
abuses.     The  following  extracts  are  from  that  volume  :  * 

"  I  have  known  many  instances  of  individuals  boldly  stating  they 
were  not  put  into  the  service  by  their  patrons  to  work.  .  .  .  The  .  .  . 
majority  of  the  members  of  the  Colonial  Department  in  my  time 
possessed  only  in  a  low  degree,  and  some  of  them  in  a  degree  almost 
incredible,  either  the  talents  or  the  habits  of  men  of  business,  or  the 
industry,  the  zeal,  or  the  knowledge  required  for  the  effective  perfor- 
mance of  their  appropriate  functions.  .  .  .  The  existing  defect  of  the 
civil  service  is,  in  my  opinion,  its  want  of  that  high  moral  tone 
which  is  so  essential  in  conducting  the  common  affairs  of  life.  .  .  . 
The  most  feeble  sons  in  families  which  have  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
obtain  an  appointment,  yes,  and  others  too,  either  mentally  or  physi- 
cally incapacitated,  enter  the  service.  The  more  able  and  ambitious 
sons  seek  the  open  professions.  .  .  .  The  fault  of  the  present  system 
lies  principally  in  the  fact  that  almost  every  branch  of  the  Permanent 
Civil  Service  is  connected  more  or  less  with  politics  through^the  heads 
of  the  respective  departments  .  .  .  and  that  the  selection  of  officers 
generally  proceeds  on  political  grounds,  and  for  political  purposes.  .  . 
The  needless  and  very  inconvenient  increase  of  the  numbers  borne  on 
the  clerical  list — the  frequent  transfer  of  many  of  their  appropriate 
duties  to  ill-educated  and  ill-paid  supernumeraries — and  the  not  infre- 
quent occurrence  of  mistakes  and  oversights  are  so  serious  as  occasion- 
ally to  imperil  interests  of  high  national  importance.  .  .  .  Every 
person  who  has  had  experience  in  conducting  a  large  office  will  admit, 
that  if  all  were  really  efficient  ...  it  could  be  probably  executed 
by  two-thirds  of  tlie  number  of  clerks  at  present  employed.  Let  any  one 
who  has  had  experience  reflect  on  the  operation  of  patronage  on 
Elections,  Parliament,  and  the  Government.  Over  each  it  exercises  an 
evil  influence.  In  the  Elections,  it  interferes  with  the  honest  exercise  of 
the  franchise  ;  in  Parliament  it  encourages  subservience  to  the  adminis- 
tration ;  it  impedes  the  free  action  of  a  Government  desirous  of  pursuing 
an  honest  or  an  economical  course,  and  it  occasions  the  employment 
of  persons  without  regard  to  their  peculiar  fitness.  It  is  a  more  per- 
nicious system  than  the  mere  giving  of  money  to  Electors  or  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  to  secure  their  votes.  It  is  bribery  in  its  worst 
form.    .    .     Notwithstanding  the  constant  interference  of  the  House 

»  Pages  52,  53.  54,  73,  80,  81,  74-330,  302,  271,  272. 


150  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAI^f. 

of  Commons  in  matters  relating  to  the  civil  service,  the  reform  of  the 
civil  service  remains  just  where  it  was.  Their  single  panacea  for  all 
the  evils  they  supposed  to  exist  in  it  is,  was,  and  ever  will  be, 
retrenchment,  the  abolition  and  consolidation  of  offices,  and  the  dim- 
inution of  salaries.  The  mode  of  making  the  service  efficient  seems 
never  to  have  entered  their  minds  ;  and  the  real  reform  of  the  civil 
service  is  still  left  for  the  civil  service  itself  to  accomplish. ' ' 

The  point  made  by  the  last  writer  was  that  members  of 
Parhament,  wishing  to  preserve  their  patronage  and  to  use  it 
in  their  own  interest — to  reward  their  favorites  and  supporters — 
would  never  consent  to  any  tests  of  character  and  capacity  that 
would  limit  their  own  arbitrary  authority  by  keeping  out  the 
unworthy.  This  was  the  greatest  obstacle  in  the  later  stages 
of  reform  in  Great  Britain.  The  disinterestedness  required 
for  a  surrender  of  that  patronage  was  too  great  for  Par- 
liamentary patriotism.  No  candid  person,  I  think,  can  read 
these  statements  of  the  condition  of  the  British  civil  service  in 
the  last  generation  without  being  impressed  with  its  great 
similarity  to  that  of  our  own  in  this  generation.  And  that  the 
causes  which  produced  both  were  substantially  the  same  per- 
hajJS  hardly  admits  of  a  doubt.  Great  as  had  been  the  re- 
forms already  achieved,  it  is  not  strange  that  when  public  at- 
tention became  concentrated  upon  this  new  phase  of  abuses, 
the  demand  for  their  removal  was  exj)ressed  with  great  vigor. 
^Neither  parties  nor  members  of  Parliament,  however,  at  that 
time,  showed  any  inclination  to  surrender  their  patronage. 
The  statesmen  of  that  day  may  have  thought  that  a  reform 
of  the  Parliamentary  representation  itself  would  be  the  best 
means  of  mitigating  if  not  of  removing  such  abuses.  How- 
ever the  fact  may  have  been,  they  bent  themselves  upon 
that  reform.  How  long  and  stormy  the  struggle  that  secured 
a  great  victory  for  liberal  government  in  the  reform  law  of 
1832,  is  well  known.  I  have  already  referred  to  the  monstrous 
injustice  and  corruption  at  which  it  was  aimed.  Lord  John 
Russell  took  the  lead  in  the  struggle  in  which  it  was  carried. 
It  was  the  greatest  and  most  desperate  civil  contest  in  modern 
history.  On  one  side  of  the  issue  hung  the  rights  of  the 
people  to  be  better  represented  and  protected,  and  on  the 
other  the  waning  supremacy  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  cor- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN-.  151 

mpt  borough  system.  All  England  was  for  several  years  in  a 
ferment  of  agitation.  It  required  the  most  formidable  dis- 
play of  the  police  and  military  to  keep  the  peace,  and  even 
that  failed.  Monster  meetings,  fired  with  anger  and  indigna- 
tion, were  held  in  all  the  great  cities.  One  at  Birmingham, 
in  1831,  was  attended  by  150,000  people,  and  it  voted  "  to 
refuse  to  pay  taxes  as  Hampden  had  refused  to  pay  ship 
money,"  if  reform  was  not  granted;  and  it  petitioned  Par- 
liament to  withhold  supplies.  Great  bodies  of  people  paraded 
the  streets  of  the  larger  cities  in  an  angry  mood,  and  assaulted 
distinguished  noblemen.  Durmg  two  days,  the  city  of  Bristol 
was  in  the  hands  of  a  riotous  mob.  Custom  houses,  excise 
offices,  and  bishops'  palaces  were  carried  by  stonn.  The  ex- 
tinction of  the  peerage  was  threatened,  and  the  throne  itself 
was  in  danger.  In  1831,  the  second  reading  of  the  bill  was 
carried  in  the  Commons  by  a  majority  of  one,  in  a  vote  of 
608,  the  largest  number  that  ever  voted  in  Parliament. 
Another  year  of  fearful  agitation  followed.  There  were  mon- 
ster meeting  assuming  attitudes  of  intimidation,  and  filling  the 
air  with  threats  of  violence.  It  was  not  until  the  danger  of  a 
general  collision  between  the  government  and  the  people  was 
imminent,  and  the  perils  of  the  nation  could  be  read  in  smok- 
ing harvests  and  burning  castles  and  mansions,  that  the  bill  was 
passed.  The  close  monopolies  at  elections  were  set  aside,  and 
a  £10  household  franchise  was  established.  Fifty-six  boroughs, 
having  less  than  2000  inhabitants,  and  returning  one  hundred 
and  eleven  members,  were  swept  away.  The  disfranchisement 
extended  to  one  hundred  and  forty-three  members.  Twenty- 
two  large  towns  and  districts  were  allowed  two  members  each, 
and  twenty  more  one  each.  These  changes  secured  a  fairer  re- 
presentation of  the  better  public  opinion,  and  greatly  limited 
but  by  no  means  prevented  bribery.'  A  large  body  of  intelli- 
gent and  worthy  persons  of  small  means  were,  for  the  first 
time,  enabled  to  vote.  Royalty  and  aristocracy  lost  a  great 
deal  of  power  which  that  class  of  voters  gained.     The  cause 

'  Soon  after,  the  laws  against  bribery  were  made  more  effective  by  allow- 
ing  geneml  proof  of  bribery  to  precede  the  proof  of  agency  of  the  members' 
supposed  bribing  agent ;  and  still  later  by  a  law  authorizing  the  personal 
examination  of  sitting  members  and  candidates.  (4  and  5  Vict.,  chap.  57  ; 
14  and  15  Vict.,  chap.  99.) 


152  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

of  good  administration  was  thus  strongly  reinforced.  But  it 
soon  appeared  that  even  this  vast  extension  of  suffrage  had 
left  the  cause  of  reform  too  weak  to  take  nominations  from 
members  of  Parliament,  or  to  install  merit  in  the  place  of 
favoritism  at  the  gates  of  the  pubhc  service.  The  partisan 
system  was  too  strongly  entrenched,  and  its  managers  too  skil- 
ful, to  be  captured  in  that  way.  They  resisted  to  the  utmost. 
With  more  votes  to  win  and  more  vigorous  political  criticism 
to  withstand,  the  partisan  managers  of  the  reformed  Parhament 
only  saw  the  greater  need  of  using  every  fragment  of  patron- 
age to  perpetuate  their  monopoly.  Though  the  higher  leader- 
sliips  and  better  public  sentiment  which  prevailed,  after  1832, 
were  able  (in  1833)  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  British  Colonies  ; 
to  terminate  the  monopoly  in  the  East  India  trade  ;  to  reform 
the  poor  laws  and  the  tithe  laws  ;  to  provide  an  admirable 
municipal  system  in  the  two  years  next  following ;  to  inau- 
gurate popular  education  in  1834,  and  greatly  extend  it  in 
1839  ;  to  overthrow  the  corn  laws  monopoly  in  1846  after  a 
contest  only  less  desperate  than  that  which  canned  the  Keform 
Bill ;  and  to  improve  the  administration  in  many  ways  which 
I  need  not  mention  in  detail — yet  moral  forces  equal  to  such 
high  achievements  were  altogether  too  weak  to  take  a  young 
man  of  merit  and  put  him  into  the  public  service  without  the 
formal  consent  of  some  member  of  Parliament,  or  of  the 
official  heads  of  the  party  in  power  ;  a  consent  which  was 
almost  sure  to  turn  upon  personal  or  partisan  reasons. 

It  was  not  till  long  after  1832  that  the  inlierent  mischief  of 
the  partisan  system  became  manifest  to  the  great  body  of 
thinking  people.  When  that  result  was  attained,  the  final 
struggle  with  patronage  in  the  hands  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment began  on  a  larger  scale.  It  seems  to  have  been,  even 
then,  foreseen  by  the  best  informed  that  it  could  not  be  re- 
moved by  any  partisan  agency.  They  began  to  see  the  need 
of  some  method  by  which  fitness  for  the  public  service  could 
be  tested  other-svise  than  by  the  fiat  of  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment or  the  vote  of  the  Cabinet  or  the  Treasury.  What 
that  method  should  be  was  one  of  the  great  problems  of 
the  future.  No  government  had  then  solved  it.  That  there 
must  be  tests  of  fitness  independent  of  any  political  action,  or 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GBEAT  BRITAIN.  153 

mere  official  influence,  became  more  and  more  plain  to  think- 
ing men. 

The  leadere  of  the  great  parties  soon  began  to  see  that  a 
public  opinion  in  favor  of  such  tests  was  being  rapidly  de- 
veloped, wliich  seriously  threatened  their  power,  unless  the 
party  system  itself  could  be  made  more  acceptable  to  the 
people.  Parliament  (after  a  fashion  with  which  we  are 
familiar)  held  long  debates  and  ordered  frequent  investigations 
into  the  details  of  the  public  service,  but  always  passing  by  the 
great  evil  for  which  its  members  were  responsible.  They 
could  see  and  were  ready  to  attack  any  abuse  except  their  own 
prostitution  of  patronage.  Talk  of  economy  was  as  long, 
loud,  and  frequent  as  it  has  been  in  our  Congress.  The  party 
in  power  commended  itself  to  the  people  from  time  to  time  by 
exposing  the  extravagance  of  its  opponents,  by  having  the 
salaries  of  officers  cut  down,  by  lopping  off  a  few  of  the 
many  supernumeraries,  by  removing  some  of  the  many  com- 
pHcations.  And  above  all,  there  was  ^n  abundance  of  fine 
promises  made.  But  no  member  gave  up  his  patronage — no 
way  was  opened  by  which  a  person  of  merit  could  get  into  an 
office  or  a  place  except  by  the  favor  of  the  party  or  the  conde- 
scension of  a  member.  The  partisan  blockade  of  every  port 
of  entry  to  the  public  service,  which  made  it  tenfold  easier  for 
a  decayed  butler  or  an  incompetent  cousin  of  a  member  or  a 
minister,  than  for  the  promising  son  of  a  poor  widow,  to 
pass  the  barrier,  was,  after  tlie  Refonn  Bill  as  before,  rigidly 
maintained.  Fealty  to  the  party  and  work  in  its  ranks — sub- 
serviency to  members  and  to  ministers — and  electioneering  on 
their  behalf — these  were  the  virtues  before  which  the  ways  to 
office  and  the  doors  of  the  Treasury  were  opened.  Year  by 
year,  the  pubHc  discontent  with  the  whole  system  increased. 
Certain  parts  of  it  had  already  been  found  so  degrading  and 
intolerable  that  an  ingenious  mitigation  had  been  contrived. 
In  "NValpole's  time,  a  Parliamentary  biibery  agent  had  been 
employed,  with  plenary  authority  to  make  contracts  with 
members  and  to  comply  with  their  terms  in  the  distribution 
of  the  corruption  fund.  After  this  analogy,  there  had  been 
provided,  for  the  present  exigency,  a  broken  general  in  pat- 
ronage called  "The  Patronage  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,"- 


154  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

whose  duty  it  was  to  stand  between  members  and  partisan 
managers  appealing  for  places  for  their  favorites,  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  heads  of  offices  who  needed  to  have  these  places 
filled  with  competent  persons,  on  the  other  side.  This  Sec- 
retary measured  the  force  of  threats  and  took  the  weight  of 
influence  ;  he  computed  the  pohtical  value  of  a  member's  sup- 
port and  deducted  from  it  the  official  appraisement  of  patron- 
age before  awarded  to  him.  It  is  said  that  actual  accounts, 
Dr.  and  Cr.  were  kept  with  members  by  this  Patronage 
Secretary.  Degrading  as  such  an  arrangement  was,  it  was 
far  better  than  to  have  members  of  Parliament  going  from 
department  to  department  and  from  office  to  office,  now  sug- 
gesting favors  and  then  assaults  in  Parliament — here  using 
threats  and  there  persuasion — in  aid  of  his  purpose  of  foisting 
a  dependent  or  an  electioneering  agent  upon  the  public  treas- 
ury. This  comptroller-general  of  patronage  continued  in  full 
sway  until  competitive  examinations,  upon  the  introduction  of 
the  merit  system,  had  made  an  end  of  patronage.  He  still 
feebly  survives,  but  only  as  the  withered  skeleton  of  the  great 
political  potentate  which  he  once  was — in  whose  presence 
members  took  ofi  their  hats  and  their  dependents  fell  to  their 
knees. 


CHAPTEK  XIII. 

PARTISAN    SYSTEM   "WANTSTG   AND    EXAMINATIONS    INTRODUCED. 

The  patronage  monopoly  challenged. — Peel  as  a  reformer. — Statesmen  see 
that  the  partisan  system  is  failing. — Promotions  for  merit  introduced  in 
1820.— Examinations  between  1834  and  1841.— Their  beneficial  effect.— 
Imitated  in  the  United  States  in  1853. — Examinations  opposed  in  Great 
Britain  because  democratic. — The  Ttierit  system  defined. — Various  kinds 
of  examinations  explained — 'Pass,"  "Limited  Competition,"  and 
"  Open  Competition— The  principle  and  tendency  of  the  latter. 

The  demand  for  administrative  reform  lias  now  become  con- 
centrated against  the  great  monopoly  of  designating  all  persons 
for  the  civil  service,  which  is  held  potentially  by  members  of 
Parliament,  How  to  break  up  that  monopoly  and  to  open  the 
public  service  to  merit  without  influence,  has  become  a  great 
question.  The  people  do  not  challenge  party  government  it- 
self, but  thoughtful  men  are  concerned  at  its  prostitution. 
They  concede  that  the  party  majority  should  elect  all  legisla- 
tors and  enact  all  laws  ;  that  it  should  make  up  the  Cabinet  and 
select  all  those  higher  oflicers  who  shall  stand  for  and  carry 
into  effect  the  policy,  both  foreign  and  domestic,  which  the 
majority  of  the  people  have  approved  at  the  polls.  But  the 
rest — ^the  sixty  thousand  or  more  subordinates  who  are  bound 
to  obey  the  instnictions  of  those  superiors — and  whose  politics, 
to  say  the  least,  are  not  so  important  as  their  capacity  and  their 
character — these  they  insist  should  be  selected  with  reference 
to  personal  merit  and  not  partisan  convictions.  Wliat  should 
be  the  test  and  how  applied  ?  This,  after  the  Peform  Bill, 
became  a  much  mooted  question. 

I  have  said  that,  since  the  time  of  Mr,  Pitt,  the  fame  of 
nearly  every  leading  English  statesman  has  in  large  measure 
rested  upon  his  reform  policy.  We  now  find  new  illustrations 
of  this  fact.     That  of  Lord  John  Kussell  stands  on  the  Reform 


156  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

Bill  of  1832.  Sir  Robert  Peel  was,  perhaps,  the  most  prac- 
tical statesman  England  had  produced,  and  as  little  as  any 
flattered  by  the  seductions  which  an  aristocracy  can  offer  ;  for 
he  refused  a  peerage  and  the  highest  Order  of  distinction  the 
Queen  could  tender  him.  In  1816,  he  brought  about  a  great 
reform  by  the  passage  of  the  Irish  Constabulary  Act ;  in  1822, 
he  carried  a  measure  for  reforming  the  criminal  laws  ;  and  a  few 
years  later  he  caused  the  Metropolitan  Police  law  for  London  to 
be  enacted,  with  its  stringent  provisions  for  excluding  politics. 

"  To  check  the  introduction  of  patronage  into  the  Metropolitan 
Police  force,  Sir  Robert  Peel  provided  that  no  one  should  be  admit- 
ted as  qualified  for  the  office  of  inspector  or  superintendent  who  bad 
not  been  trained  by  actual  service  in  each  subordinate  rank. ' '  ^ 

To  these  measures  of  administrative  reform,  he  brought  the 
whole  force  of  his  character.  It  is  after  these  models  that  the 
police  system  of  New  York  city,  and  all  the  best  police  laws 
we  have,  are  framed.  These  police  laws  were  the  first  laws  (since 
the  act  of  Hichard  II.)  that,  in  principle,  made  personal  quali- 
fication in  an  oflicer  paramount  to  political  opinions  or  the  favor 
of  some  great  lord  or  politician.  Despite  the  pressure  of  mem- 
bers of  Parliament,  who  demanded  every  scrap  of  patronage, 
those  administering  the  government  had,  at  an  earlier  date, 
been  forced  by  sheer  necessity  to  resort  to  other  than  political 
methods  for  securing  adequate  ability.  Lord  Liverpool  set  the 
example  in  1820,  and  his  example  was  followed  by  Mr.  Canning. 
"  Before  that  time,  all  the  higher  appointments  in  the  customs 
service,  the  collectors  and  comptrollers  of  the  outposts,  were 
filled  by  members  (of  Parliament)  from  the  posts, 
and  from  certain  boroughs  which  regularly  returned  govern- 
ment members.  .  .  .  There  was  a  commission  of  inquiry 
into  the  customs  service  which  reported  in  that  year  and  made 
a  strong  presentation  of  the  abuses  that  existed. 
Upon  the  recommendation  of  this  commission.  Lord  Liverpool 
sacrificed  all  that  patronage,  and  laid  down  the  principle  that 
all  superior  officers  in  the  customs  should  be  supplied  by  pro- 
motion from  the  inferior  ranks.  .  .  .  Lord  Grey,  in  1830  .  .  . 
gave  up  all  exercise  of  patronage,  in  matters  relating  to  pro- 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  149. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  157 

motion,  and  it  has  so  continued  ever  since. "  '  To  comprehend 
the  statesmanship  and  disinterestedness  and  the  moral  tone  in 
party  leaders  required  for  such  a  cliange,  we  nmst  imagine  an 
American  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  as  abandoning  all  idea  of  ad- 
vancing partisan  interests  by  selecting  political  managers  for  the 
coUectorships  or  the  other  high  places  in  the  customs  service,  and 
as  filling  its  offices  (with  the  consent  of  those  leaders)  by  the 
promotion  of  the  most  worthy  subordinates  in  that  sers'ice.  If 
the  relief  from  lamentable  controversy  and  demoralizing  in- 
trigue, which  such  a  change  would  produce,  are  indescribable, 
Ave  can  at  least  in  that  way  get  a  better  idea  of  the  reform  thus 
made  in  England  nearly  sixty  years  ago. 

During  the  Melbourne  administration,  between  1834  and 
1841,  a  demand  for  examinations,  as  a  condition  for  admission 
to  the  service,  came  from  two  very  different  quarters.  One 
was  the  higher  officials,  Avho  declared  that  they  could  not  do  the 
public  work  with  such  poor  servants  as  the  partisan  system 
supplied."  Tlie  other  was  the  more  independent,  thoughtful 
portion  of  the  people,  who  held  it  to  be  as  unjust  as  it  was  de- 
moralizing for  members  of  Parliament  and  other  officers  to 
monopolize  the  privilege  of  saying  who  might  enter  the  public 
service.  Lord  Melbourne  then  yielded  so  far  as  to  allow  i^ass 
examinations  to  be  instituted  in  some  of  the  larger  offices  ;  and 
he  was  inclined  to  favor  competitive  examinations,  but  it  was 
thought  to  be  too  great  an  innovation  to  attempt  at  once. 
These  examinations — several  of  them  being  competitive — in- 
troduced by  public  officers  in  self-  defence  many  years  previous 
to  1853,  had  before  that  time  produced  striking  results.  In 
the  Poor  Law  Commission,  for  example,  they  had  brought 
about  a  refonn  that  arrested  public  attention.  Under  the 
Committee   on  Education,  they  had   caused  the  selection  of 

'  Report  on  Civil  Service,  etc.,  18G0,  p.  G9. 

'  "  It  used  to  be  by  no  means  uncommon  to  have  a  fine,  fashionably 
dressed  j^oung  man  introduced  as  the  junior  clerk.  On  trial  he  turns  out  tit 
for  nothing.  The  head  of  the  department  knows  from  old  experience  that 
a  representation  of  this  fact  to  higher  quarters  would  merely  draw  down  ill 
will  upon  himself.  .  .  .  Besides  there  is  the  imbecile,  who  is  below 
work.  .  .  .  The  public  offices  have  been  a  resource  for  many  an  idle, 
dissipated  youth,  with  whom  other  occupations  have  been  tried  in  vain." 
(Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  181.) 
11 


158  CIVIL  SERVICE   m   GREAT  BRITAIN-. 

teachers  so  mucli  superior  "  that  higher  salaries  were  bidden 
for  them  for  private  service,  .  .  .  and  they  were  taken 
away  to  a  seriously  inconvenient  extent."  In  the  General 
Board  for  Public  Works,  both  superior  servants  and  greater 
economy  had  been  the  result  of  examinations  in  so  marked  a 
degree  that  "  the  local  authorities  of  twenty-five  cities  and 
towns  .  .  .  have  practically  abandoned  the  jDrincij^le  of 
patronage  by  requesting  the  General  Board  to  name  an 
engineer  for  .  .  .  taking  responsible  superintendence. 
In  all  sixty-nine  towns  have  .  .  .  abandoned  the  principle 
of  appointment  by  patronage.  .  .  .  The  result  has  been 
improved  local  administration,  local  party  agitation  has  heen 
checked,  .  .  .  fewer  persons  are  put  on  the  lists  to  carry 
appointments  or  contracts,  and  the  attendance  of  persons  of 
higher  qualifications  on  the  local  boards  ;  and  business  has 
been  better  transacted- "  '  If  I  had  space  for  the  facts,  it  could 
be  shown,  that  the  reform  in  municipal  administration  in  Great 
Britain  has  hardly  been  less  than  in  its  national  affairs  ;  and 
that  the  same  methods  of  improving  the  character  of  the  official 
force  and  of  advancing  economy  have  been  found  equally  ap- 
plicable in  both. 

Such  were  the  first  distinct  encroachments  made  by  the 
Executive  upon  the  partisan  system  by  a  partial  introduction  of 
the  merit  system  through  examinations.  These  examinations 
were  steadily  extended  from  office  to  office  down  to  the  radical 
change  made  in  1853.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  these  ex- 
aminations— the  theory  of  placing  personal  merit  above  politics 
in  selections  for  office — originated  not  in  Parliament — not  by 
that  body  .showing  any  willingness  to  surrender  patronage 
which  it  had  usurped — but  in  the  executive  department,  where 
the  evils  were  most  felt  and  the  responsibility  for  good  admin- 
istration rested.  The  aim  and  tendency  of  the  examinations 
were  not  to  aggrandize  the  Executive,  but  rather  to  limit  its 
discretion,  by  opening  the  public  service  in  some  measure 
to  the  whole  people.  We  shall  find  that,  in  all  stages  of  the 
later  reforais,  the  Executive  has  held  this  position,  and  that 
the  people,  and  not  the    Crown,  have  gained  influence  and 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  142-150. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN".  159 

opportnnitj.     Parliament  did  not  aid,  but  was  compelled  by 
the  people  to  acquiesce,  in  tliis  reform. 

The  liigher  public  opinion  had  been  making  rapid  progress," 
and  it  now  overawed  Parliament  and  gave  direction  to  State 
policy.  The  leading  statesmen  were  too  clear-sighted  not  to 
see  that  the  time  had  come  when  a  great  party,  which  should 
attempt  to  confront  such  an  opinion,  and  to  rule  through  pat- 
ronage, must  go  to  the  walL  A  strictly  partisan  system  of 
administration  was  no  longer  practicable.  Both  parties  seem 
to  have  reached  this  condition  about  the  same  time.  Mel- 
bourne, Peel,  Russell,  Aberdeen,  Palmerston,  and  Derby,  the 
leaders  of  both  parties — who  certainly  were  neither  theorists 
nor  doctrinaires — and  whose  administrations  together  cover  the 
whole  period  from  1834  to  1868 — acted  upon  tliis  view  of  the 
situation.  They  clearly  considered  the  partisan  system  as 
doomed,  from  the  moment  it  should  be  found  practicable  to 
substitute  a  better  system,  and  that  any  party  was  also  doomed 
that  should  refuse  to  make  a  practical  test  of  examinations  as 
a  basis  for  a  better  system.  This  was  not  because  there  was 
little  l^arty  spirit ;  on  the  contrary,  party  spirit  was  as  vigorous 
and  exacting  as  it  ever  has  been  in  this  country.  For  example. 
Sir  Robert  Peel  (between  1836  and  1811)  refused  to  form  a 
ministry  because  Queen  Victoria  would  not  dismiss  certain 
ladies  of  her  household  who  had  Whig  connections.  This 
state  of  public  opinion  naturally  prevented  the  question  of 
civil-service  reform  ever  being  made  a  direct  issue  between  the 
great  parties  in  England  ;  but  caused  it,  as  naturally,  to  be 
made  for  a  long  time  an  issue  in  each  party  between  its  more 
unselfish,  patriotic  elements  on  one  side,  and  its  more  partisan 
and  cornipt  elements  on  the  other  side.  "  The  question  of 
reforming  the  administration  did  not  so  much  divide  the  two 
parties  as  it  did  each  party  within  itself,  according  to  the  moral 
level  of  its  members.""  Each  party  claimed — as  we  have 
seen  opposing  parties  claim,  and  with  no  more  sincerity — to  be 

'  In  1821,  such  men  as  Lord  Castlereagh,  Mr.  Huskisson,  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston ridiculed  Mr.  Joseph  Hume  for  firmly  supporting  reform  ;  but 
thirt}'  years  later  Mr.  Hume  was  still  in  Parliament,  and  was  regarded  "  with 
unfeigned  and  cordial  respect  bj-  leading  members  of  all  sorts  of  politics." 
(Miss  Martineau's  Biographical  Sketches,  p.  305.) 

"  Civil  Service  Report,  1860. 


160  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

the  special  friend  of  reform,  and  appealed  to  tlie  people  for 
support  on  that  basis.  There  can  be  nothing  original  in  this 
country  in  that  line  of  policy.  The  state  of  public  opinion  in 
England  at  that  time,  upon  the  subject  of  admissions  to  the 
public  service,  was  similar  to  what  is  with  us  now,  though 
somewhat  more  advanced.  Neither  party  dared  defy  the  re- 
form sentiment,  and  both,  while  courting  it,  were  too  ready  to 
depart  from  its  principles.  From  the  time  that  the  beneficial 
results  of  examinations  had  become  known  to  the  people,  it 
was  seen  to  be  impossible  ever  to  suppress  them,  unless  upon 
the  substitution  of  examinations  of  a  better  kind.  Before 
1853,  at  which  time  they  had  been  in  practice  for  about  twenty 
years,  they  had  done  much  to  improve  the  public  service, 
though  they  were  very  defective,  and  had  been  applied  in  only 
a  part  of  the  offices. 

These  examinations  attracted  attention  in  this  country,  and 
they  led  to  the  enactment  of  the  law  of  1853,'  which  divided 
our  clerks  in  the  Treasury,  AVar,  iN^avy,  Interior,  and  Post 
Ofiice  departments  into  four  classes,  and  provided  that  "  no 
clerk  shall  be  appointed  .  .  .  until  after  he  has  been  ex- 
amined and  found  qualified  by  a  board  to  consist  of  three  ex- 
aminers." In  1855,"  similar  provisions  were  extended  to  the 
State  .De23artment.' 

The  great  difference  in  the  action  of  the  two  countries,  at 
that  time  so  nearly  in  harmony,  has  been  that  we  fell  away 
from  the  policy  on  which  the  laws  of  1853  and  1855  are  based, 
while  England  has  continued  to  advance  steadily  in  the  same 
direction,  and  thereby  has  more  and  more  elevated  her  civil 
service.  But  the  continuing  encroachment  upon  the  partisan 
system  which  such  examinations  threatened  were  not  to  be 
allowed  without  a  struggle.  It  was  clearly  seen  that  they 
were  democratic  in  tendency,  and  that  they  challenged,  not 
merely  the  partisan  monopoly  of  the  members  of  the  House,  but 
the  vested  interests  and  the  prestige  of  the  aristocracy  as  well. 

'  Ch.  97,  §  3.  "  Laws  1855,  chap.  175,  §  4. 

'  In  some  sort  of  fashion,  pass  examinations  have  been  since  made  under 
these  laws,  except  during  the  time  the  civil  service  rules  were  enforced 
pursuant  to  the  statute  of  3d  March,  1871  (now  Revised  Statutes,  §  1753), 
under  which  President  Grant,  through  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  pro- 
vided for  uniform  competitive  examinations. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  161 

Pointing  out  the  tendency  of  the  new  method,  one  writer  says 
it  will  increase  "  until  at  last  the  aristocracy  will  be  altogether 
dissociated  from  the  permanent  civil  service  of  the  country." 
.  Another  says,  "  The  encouragement  given  to  educa- 
tion would  no  doubt  be  great,  .  .  .  but  it  will  be  all  in 
favor  of  the  lower  classes  of  society  and  not  of  the  higher. ' ' 
Another  says,  ...  "  The  principal  objection  whicli  I  have 
heard  ...  is,  that  appointments  now  conferred  on  young 
men  of  aristocratic  connexion  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  per- 
sons in  a  much  lower  grade  in  society. ' '  ' 

The  strength  of  a  custom  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  in  a 
conservative  old  country  like  England,  in  favor  of  any  system, 
thus  united  with  the  interests  of  the  privileged  classes  in  its 
preservation,  were  indeed  a  formidable  power.  Those  who 
stood  for  patronage  and  those  who  stood  for  class  distinctions 
naturally  joined  hands  to  break  do^\Ti  these  examinations,  and 
to  change  the  public  judgment  which  sustained  them.  Their 
sarcasms,  their  ridicule,  and  their  cunning  ]X)licy  (of  which  I 
shall  give  examples),  as  they  stand  recorded,  leave  little  chance 
for  doing  or  saying  anything  original  by  those  who  oppose  re- 
f onn  in  this  country.  The  friends  of  reform  met  those  attacks 
not  only  by  argument,  but  by  demanding  open  competi- 
tive examinations,  common  for  all  the  departments  and  free 
to  all  the  people,  and  the  merit  system^  of  ajipointments  and 
promotions.  They  also  insisted  that  it  was  an  mjustice,  a 
usuqjation,  and  a  source  of  manifold  evils  for  members 
of  Parliament  and  other  high  officers  to  hold  a  monopoly  of 
patronage,  so  that  none  could  go  into  the  public  service 
without  their  consent.     Before  proceeding  further,  it  will  be 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  44  and  289. 

'  By  the  merit  system  I  mean  that  theory  of  government  (and  the  proper 
method  of  examinations  and  promotions  tlirougli  ■whicli  it  is  applied,  and 
the  proper  regulations  for  attaining  economy  and  efficiency)  whicli  treats 
personal  qualificat  ons,  rather  than  the  political  opinions  or  tlie  partisan 
services  of  applicants  for  office,  as  the  true  and  paramount  basis  for  appoint- 
ments ;  -which  regards  office,  including  the  appointing  power,  as  a  public 
trust  and  not  as  an  official  perquisite  or  a  partisan  agency  for  propagating 
political  opinions  or  keeping  a  party  in  power.  From  the  despotic  system, 
under  the  Norman  kings,  through  various  spoils  systems  under  arbitniry 
kings— through  a  sort  of  partisan  system  under  Cromwell— through  fearful 
corruption  under  James  and  Charles — through  a  sort  of  aristocratic  spoils 


162  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GEE  AT   BRITAIN. 

useful  to  give  some  particulars  concerning  these  examinations, 
as  they  will  not  only  render  more  clear  what  is  to  follow,  but 
have  a  direct  bearing  upon  difficulties  in  our  civil  service. 

Kinds  of  examiriations.  There  are  three  distinct  kinds  of 
examinations  :  the  pass  examination,  the  limited  competitive 
examination,  and  the  open  competitive  examination.  The  two 
last  are  in  England  usually  designated  as  "  limited  competi- 
tion" and  "open  competition."  These  examinations  are 
very  different  in  principle,  and  in  their  adequacy  to  bring  about 
the  best  results.  I  shall  not  now  enter  upon  the  question  of 
their  utility.  It  was  never  any  part  of  the  theory  upon  which 
either  is  based,  that  it  should  extend  to  judges,  to  any  legisla- 
tive, or  other  officer  elected  by  the  people,  or  to  any  member 
of  the  Cabinet,  or  to  foreign  ministers  (as  such),  or  to  any 
high  officer  of  the  executive  department  (in  England  there 
being  not  exceeding  fifty  excluded  officers,  besides  those 
elected)  who  can  properly  be  regarded  as  the  representative 
of  the  principles  or  policy  of  the  party  in  power.  Officere 
who  arc  properly  regarded  as  political  must,  of  course,  be 
selected  in  reference  to  their  political  opinions  and  ideas  of 
policy,  and  it  is  they  who  are  clothed  "wdth  authority,  to  comjiel 
the  subordinate  members  of  the  civil  service  (from  collectors  and 
postmasters  to  doorkeepers,  to  whom  the  examinations  apply) 
to  obey  all  proper  instructions.  They  thus  carry  out  the  great 
.j)olicy,  foreign  and  domestic,  which  the  popular  majority 
has  approved.  Obedience  to  them  and  to  tlie  laws  is  the  duty 
of  all  their  subordinates.  It  is  because  these  subordinates 
have  no  more  legal  right  or  abihty  to  carry  into  practice  their 
political  opinions,  than  they  have  to  carry  out  their  personal 
theories  (contrary  to  the  instructions  of  their  superiors),  that 
such  opinions  should  not  control  in  their  selection. 

Examination  may  be  made  through  examiners  named  and 
acting  sejiarately  in  each  department  office  ;  or  there  may  be  one 

system  under  William  and  Anne — through  a  partisan  spoils  system  under 
George  I.  and  II.  and  a  part  of  the  reign  of  George  III. — through  the  par- 
tisan system  in  its  best  estate  in  later  years — we  have  traced  tlie  unsteady 
but  generally  ascending  progress  of  British  administration  ;  and,  in  1870, 
we  shall  find  it  to  have  reached  a  level  at  which  office  is  treated  as  a  trust 
and  personal  merit  is  the  recognized  criterion  for  selection  for  office.  That 
was  the  inauguration  of  the  merit  system. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  163 

examining  board  for  all  departments.  Uniformity  of  require- 
ment for  admission  to  the  service  could  liardly  be  brought  about 
by  independent  examinei-s.  The  mutual  jealousy  of  departments 
and  examiners,  and  disparity  in  practice,  would  be  sure  to  be 
damaging  to  such  a  method.  It  is  otherwise  inherently  weak. 
No  examiner  would  represent  the  power  or  policy  of  the 
Executive,  but  only  that  of  a  pailicular  secretary  or  the  head 
of  a  bureau.  And  further  ;  eacli  examiner,  so  separately  ap- 
pointed, being  exjiosed  to  the  whole  pressure  of  all  those  who 
wish  to  force  unworthy  persons  upon  the  service,  and  not  being 
directly  supported  by  the  Executive,  has  no  such  power  of 
resistance  as  is  possessed  by  a  central  board  of  examiners,  di- 
rectly appointed  by  the  Executive,  which  acts  uniformly  in  his 
name  in  every  department  and  office. ' 

It  hardly  need  be  added  that  partisans  and  patronage-holders 
favored  these  isolated  examinations  and  learned  how  to  make 
their  influence  most  effective  with  detached  examiners.  It 
was  natural  too  for  secretaries  to  favor  great  party  leaders  by 
making  their  special  examinations  vary  to  suit  them.  It  has 
been  found,  after  great  experience  in  England,  that  it  was 
highly  important  that  all  examinations  of  whatever  kind  should 
be  conducted  by  one  central  examining  board  backed  by  the 
whole  power  of  the  government,  isov  is  any  other  method 
one  of  common  justice  to  all  those  in  the  public  service. 

1.  T/ie  pass  examination  is  one  under  which  each  person 
allowed  to  present  himself  is  separately  examined  as  to  whether 
he  comes  up  to  some  prescribed  standards.  He  is  put  in  com- 
parison with  nobody.  Xo  one  need  be  or  is  usually  pres- 
ent with  him  except  the  examiner,  and  very  likely  the  patron 
by  whom  lie  has  been  presented.  In  the  case  of  a  nominee 
of  a  member  of  Parliament  who  wishes  to  get  in  with  inade- 
quate qualification,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  would  not  be  one 
of  the  members  only,  but  many  having  similar  interests,  who 
would  join  to  push  him  past  the  examiner.  If  the  nominee 
was  the  favorite  of  a  minister,  a  bishop,  or  a  great  nobleman, 
or  a  partisan  clique,  and  not  utterly  a  knave  or  a  dunce,  the 

'  "  I  agree  with  you  in  thinking  tliat  tlie  examination  cannot  be  con- 
ducted in  an  etficient  manner  throughout  the  service  if  it  is  left  to  each  de- 
partment to  examine  the  candidates."    (Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  132.) 


164:  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

pressure  would  be  still  more  nearly  irresistible.  If  the  qual- 
ifications presented  came  nearly  up  to  the  prescribed  standard, 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  solicitation  and  threats  would  cause  their 
acceptance  by  an  isolated  examiner,  j)erhaps  in  peril  of  his 
place.  The  standard  once  thus  depressed,  the  next  effort 
would  be  to  go  in  at  a  still  lower  level ;  and  hence  a  tendency 
to  constant  depression.  Still,  with  all  its  inherent  tendency 
to  feebleness,  even  this  method  of  examination  raised  the  civil 
service  of  England.  Mr.  Mill  said  that,  at  their  worst,  pass 
examinations  only  kept  dunces  out,  but  as  many  dunces  were 
presented,  even  that  effect  was  no  small  blessing.  It  was  im- 
possible to  preserve  the  standard.  ''It  became  so  much  a 
matter  of  form  that  we  used  to  have  an  examination  paper 
which  was  generally  kno^vn  about  the  office.  When  a  young 
man  came  into  the  office,  he  had  to  pass  the  examination  by  a 
superior  clerk,  who  perhaps  was  the  friend  of  his  father  or 
his  uncle.  There  was  a  feeling  that  it  was  not  right  to  reject. 
It  was  a  leaping-bar-test,  and  if  the  clerk  did  not  come  up  to  the 
bar,  it  was  somewhat  lowered."  '  "  These  unkno"svn  men  of 
talent  witness  daily  their  inferiors  advancing  before  them,  who 
may  have  been  put  into  the  service  through  interest,  and  who 
probably  passed  what  is  termed  an  examination,  but  such  as  a 
charity  boy  would  smile  at."''  Another  defect  of  pass  ex- 
aminations was  that  they  allowed  the  party  managers  and  the 
holders  of  patronage  to  designate  all  the  persons  to  be  ex- 
amined ;  so  that  it  was  no  check  upon  the  parliamentary  and 
partisan  monopoly  of  nomination,  but  only  a  limitation  upon 
the  incapacity  which  they  could  foist  upon  the  public  service. 
It  gave  the  people,  outside  official  favoritism,  no  opportunities. 
It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  most  inefficient  and  objectionable 
of  all  methods  of  examinations,  and  hence  those  most  accept- 
able to  spoilsmen,  are  pass  examinations,  conducted  by  separate 
examiners,  named  by  and  acting  for  each  department  or  office 
separately.  And  only  such  examinations  were  made  in  this 
countrj^  before  1872,  and,  with  very  limited  exceptions,  only 
such  were  made  in  England  before  1854.  They  showed  the 
same  defects  with  us  that  they  did  in  Great  Britain. 

'  Report  Civil  Service,  etc.,  18G0,  p.  221. 
"  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  53. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  165 

2.  Limited  competitive  exaininations  are  those  in  whicli  a 
certain  number  of  selected  persons  are  examined  in  competi- 
tion with  each  other,  with  a  view  to  give  appointments  only  to 
those  who  show  the  highest  qualifications.  The  selections  for 
examinations  were  of  course  made  by  those  having  patronage  or 
controlling  influence.  This  kind  of  examination  was  therefore 
entirely  consistent  with  the  claim  made  by  members  of  Parlia- 
ment to  designate  those  outside  of  whom  the  executive  depart- 
ment should  not  go  in  mating  its  appointments.  It  was  also 
no  less  compatible  with  the  partisan  theory  that  none  but 
those  who  adopt  the  party  creed  shall  go  into  the  public  ser- 
vice. It  allows  the  partisan  toll  gate  to  stand,  where  all  who 
enter  must  accept  the  creed  and  swear  allegiance.  But  going 
through  that  gate  does  not  bring  one  into  the  service,  but 
only  into  competition  with  all  the  others  who  have  passed  it. 
N^evertheless,  it  was  found  to  be  a  great  improvement  upon 
mere  pass  examinations ;  for,  unless  the  competition  was,  by 
reason  of  the  vicious  and  exclusive  mode  of  selections  for  it, 
confined  (as,  in  fact,  it  occasionally  was)  to  a  dead  level  of 
dunces  and  imbeciles,  superannuated  coachmen,  valets,  and 
stewards,  sickly  sons  and  shiftless  cousins,  the  competition  would 
infallibly  throw  down  the  good-for-nothings,  and  give  the  ap- 
pointments to  those  who  were  most  competent. 

3.  Open  competitive  examinations  are  founded  on  broad  prin- 
ciples of  justice,  liberty,  and  equality.  The  meaning  attached 
to  their  being  "  open"  is,  that  every  citizen  is  permitted  upon 
the  same  conditions  to  join  in  the  competition,  and  that  the 
right  of  no  one  to  be  examined  is  dependent  either  on  any 
official  or  any  party.  Each  is  to  come  publicly  and  fairly  to 
the  examination  with  the  others  who  present  themselves  ;  and 
those  who  show  the  highest  measure  of  the  qualifications  which 
the  government  requires  in  its  service,  as  laid  down  in  fixed 
regulations,  Avill  win  the  chances  of  going  into  that  service. 
All  that  fall  below  a  fixed  standard  are  excluded  by  their  in- 
competency thus  demonstrated.  In  their  very  nature,  com- 
petitive examinations  affirm  these  principles  :  (1)  Tliat  every 
citizen — whether  high-born  or  low-boni,  whether  with  great 
influence  or  wealth  or  without  any  influence  or  wealth — stands 
on  an  equality  before  the  laws  and  in  the  right  to  enjoy  an 


166  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

open  and  manly  contest  with  liis  fellows  for  the  honor  of  enter- 
ing the  service  of  his  country  ;  (2)  That  the  government  needs 
in  its  service,  and  seeks  most  to  honor  and  reward,  those  who 
represent  capacity  and  worth,  and  not  those  who  represent 
partisan  or  official  influence,  political  opinions,  or  intrigue  ; 
(3)  That  the  right  and  propriety  of  members  of  Parliament  or 
any  other  high  officers  taking  to  themselves  the  monopoly  and 
the  profit  of  opening  and  shutting,  at  their  pleasure,  the  gates 
of  the  ]3ublic  service — to  all  those  who  do  not  accept  their  poli- 
tics and  pay  court  and  swear  fealty  to  them — is  utterly  denied 
and  intended  to  be  made  impossible  in  practice  ;  and  (4)  That 
the  affairs  of  the  nation  being  the  greatest  of  all  human  affairs, 
and  its  interest  to  have  the  people  educated  and  of  good  char- 
acter being  a  paramount  interest,  therefore  a  just  test  of  rela- 
tive character,  attainments,  and  capacity  is  enforced  in  the 
common  cause  of  good  morals,  good  government,  and  general 
education.  It  is  clear  that  ojDen,  competitive  examinations 
must  be  everywhere  destructive  of  a  monopoly  of  the  right  of 
saying  who  may  be  examined.  The  poorest  and  humblest 
may  apply  without  the  consent  of  any  officer  or  any  politician. 
No  member  of  Parliament,  or  other  official,  when  they  ajjply, 
could  look  over  his  constituents  and  say,  "  This  relative  of 
mine,  these  old  worn-out  servants  of  mine,  those  who  elec- 
tioneered for  me  at  the  last  election,  those  who  will  promise 
to  work  for  me  at  the  next  election  or  for  my  schemes  of 
profit — and  those  alone — may  be  examined.  You  are  not 
among  them, ' '  The  introduction  of  open  competition  is  the 
deatli  sentence  of  the  last  phase  of  official  feudalism. 

All  members  of  Parliament,  who  cared  more  for  2:)atronage 
than  for  good  government,  Avere  as  hostile  to  open  comjjetition 
as  that  is  fatal  to  their  patronage.  It  was  of  course  opposed 
by  comipt  party  managers.  It  is  one  of  the  salutary  condi- 
tions of  open  competition  that  it  has  that  publicity  under 
which  fraud  or  favoritism  is  hardly  possible.  Every  one  who 
competes  is  interested  in  the  marks  and  in  the  character  of 
every  other  who  competes.  He  looks  to  see  that  others  are 
not  marked  more  liberally  than  himself.  He  makes  inquiries 
whether  his  fellow-competitors  are  persons  of  good  character. 
The  competitions  arrest  public  interest  and  curiosity,  and  are 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  167 

reported  in  the  public  press.  The  young  man  or  woman,  with 
a  vulnerable  reputation,  must  be  very  bold  indeed,  who  would 
dare  offer  himself  or  herself  in  such  a  contest.  Any  one  below 
may  strike  a  person  of  frail  repute  from  the  list  above,  and 
thus  advance  his  own  chances  by  exposing  the  bad  character  of 
his  competitors.  The  value  of  the  places  to  be  won  are  in  the 
nature  of  prices  to  the  worthy  for  their  worth,  and  they  are 
hardly  less  prices  offered  for  the  exposure  of  the  bad  character 
of  any  scoundrel  who  may  have  the  impudence  to  join  in  the 
competition.  Such  competition  tends  continually  to  raise  its 
own  standard  ;  for  in  every  contest  the  best  are  preferred,  no 
matter  how  high  it  rises.  The  victor  wins  by  a  test  which 
commands  his  own  self-respect  as  it  does  the  respect  of  his 
competitors,  of  the  community  which  watches  the  contest,  and 
of  the  government  which  gives  the  prize  to  merit. 

"  The  simple  nomination  system  gives  to  the  candidate  ex- 
pectations on  which  he  relies,  ...  so  that  if  he  is  neg- 
lected on  the  pass  examination,  he  is  discredited  and  disaj)- 
pointed.  The  disappointment  is  shared  by  his  friends  and 
Lis  patron,  and  leads  to  dissatisfaction  with  the  examining 
authorities  and  with  the  system  generally  ;  whilst  under  the 
system  of  open  competition,  each  candidate  is  well  aware  that 
he  has  only  a  chance  of  success,  and  that  if  he  fails  the  failure 
may  be  ascribed  to  the  merits  of  others  and  not  to  defects  on 
his  own  part. ' '  * 

The  method  of  reaching  the  public  service  through  open 
competition  would  seem  to  be  republican  in  spirit,  because 
based  on  common  justice  and  absolute  equality  before  the  laws. 
The  child  of  a  chimney  sweep  or  the  orphan  from  a  ragged 
school,  if  worthy,  may,  under  this  method — in  the  most  aristo- 
cratic nation  of  the  world — without  the  consent  of  any  officer 
or  politician  whatever — go  and  win  a  place  in  the  service  of 
his  country  over  the  favorite  of  a  cabinet  or  the  son  of  a  duke. 
The  examination  papers  of  each,  with  their  marks  and  grad- 
ings  of  relative  merit  in  the  competition,  are  preserved  ;  and 
yeare  hence,  as  well  as  at  the  moment,  the  justice  of  the  de- 
cision can  be  verified.  The  same  Civil  Service  Commission 
applies  the  same  rules  of  competition  and  the  same  tests  of 
'  Report  on  Civil  Service,  1870.  p.  300. 


168  CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

merit  in  every  department  and  in  tlie  several  localities  where 
examinations  are  held.  Thus  the  government,  everywhere  the 
same  in  its  system,  and  everywhere  through  a  process  un- 
touched by  any  suspicions  that  influence  and  favoritism  have 
prevailed,  gains  the  most  worthy  and  the  most  capable  of  those 
who  wish  to  enter  its  service.  I  have  not  intended  in  this 
outline  to  state  everything  that  is  material  to  be  known  about 
open  competition  ;  but  only  to  set  forth  its  principle  and  so 
much  of  the  method  as  is  essential  to  an  understanding  of  the 
final  struggle  in  which  it  won  the  victory  over  Parliamentary 
patronage  and  oiScial  favoritism.  If  I  have  implied  an  opin- 
ion of  its  merits,  before  presenting  the  evidence,  I  can  only 
say  now  that  such  evidence  will  not  be  -wanting. 

Probation.  But  it  should  be  added  that  it  has  been  at  all 
times  a  part  of  the  competitive  system  that  those  who  won  in 
competition  should  serve  at  least  six  months  on  moderate  pay, 
under  probation,  during  which  their  ability  and  fidelity  in 
business  affairs  could  be  tested  before  they  receive  any  actual 
appointment.  Probation  had  also  been,  in  form,  applied 
under  pass  and  limited  examinations,  though  when  influence 
j)uslied  a  man  into  and  through  the  examination,  it  generally 
pushed  him  beyond  probation  as  well.  But  it  Avas  easy  to 
apply  the  probative  test  effectually  against  the  competitor 
who  came  alone  and  had  no  influence  to  back  him.  The  fact 
that  it  will  be  applied  generally  keeps  away  those  young  men 
wdio  know,  or  whose  friends  know,  they  have  no  practical 
quahties  for  business. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

FINAL    COXTEST   BETWEEN    PATRONAGE   AND     OPEN    COMPETITION. 

The  principles  involved. — Arguments  for  and  against  Parliamentary  patron- 
age.— Is  a  partisan  system  essential  to  party  government  ? — The  evils  that 
result  from  nominations  in  the  hands  of  members  of  Parliament. 

The  decisive  part  of  the  contest  between  patronage  and 
open   competition  was  between  1845   and  1855,  tliougli  the 
victors    did   not    take    possession    of    the   whole   field  until 
1870.     No  two  systems  could  be  more  antagonistic  in  jDrinci- 
ple  than  one  based  on  open  competition  and  one  based  on 
patronage,  favoritism,   and  spoils.      The  difference  was  one  \ 
which  involved  the  nature  of  office,  the  duties  of  public  serv- 
ants, the  theory  of  party  government,  the  authority  and  func- 
tions of  Parliament,  the  common  rights  of  the  people  to  hold 
office,  and  the  relative  claims  of  character  and    capacity  as 
comjjared  with  those  of  partisanship  and  subsei'vience  upon 
the  respect  and  honors  of  a  great  nation.     Are  offices  public 
tiiists  for  the  common  good,  or  are  they  partisan  outposts  for 
the  special  benefit  of  those  who  can  capture  them  ?     Were 
officers  in  the  subordinate  service  to  be  first  of  all  electioneer- 
ing agents  and  obedient  representatives  of  high  officials,  or 
were  they  to  be  the  common  servants  and  guardians  of  the 
community  ?     Should  parties    seek    their   strength  in  sound 
principles  and  a  wise  policy,  carried  into  effect  in  a  pure,  vig- 
orous, and  economical  administration,  or  should  they  seek  it  in 
the  adroit  use  of  patronage  and  the  skilful  manipulation  of 
elections  ?     Ought  members  of  Parliament  to  confine  them- 
selves to  a  courageous  and  thorough  scrutiny  of  the  acts  of  the    . 
Executive,    and  to  preserve  that  independence  of  patronage  I 
which  would  enable  them  to  do  so,  or  was  it  better  that  they  Ij 
should  grasp  and  use  all  the  patronage  possible,  each  being  in 


170  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

the  line  of  his  duty  alike,  while  searching  through  the  offices 
for  as  much  as  he  can  gather,  and  while  using  it  to  suit  his 
official  caprice  or  to  discharge  his  election  pledges  ?  Did  or 
did  not  an  election  to  Parliament,  as  matter  of  law  or  of  prin- 
ciple, confer  the  right  to  a  fractional  part  of  all  the  ap- 
pointments in  Great  Britain,  as  personal  perquisite,  or  partisan 
spoils  ?  Were  her  people  for  ever  to  allow  all  chances  of  en- 
tering the  public  service  to  depend  upon  the  will  of  a  member 
of  Parliament  and  a  few  high  officials,  or,  in  the  name  of  com- 
^  mon  justice  and  equality,  should  it  be  demanded  that  free  and 
open  access  to  office  should  be  opened  to  the  most_worthy  ? 
Should  education  and  character  be  encouraged  by  conferring 
office  upon  merit,  or  should  partisan  tyranny  and  political  in- 
trigue be  encouraged  by  bestowing  it  as  the  reward  of  influ- 
ence and  servility  ?  These  were  the  issues  involved  in  the 
struggle.  There  was  nothing  in  the  form  or  the  history  of 
the  government  to  make  such  a  struggle  less  severe  than  it 
would  be  with  us  ;  but  quite  the  contrary.  Members  of  Par- 
liament loved  executive  power  and  knew  how  to  use  specious 
arguments  to  defend  its  usurpation.  There  was  no  purer  era 
of  public  administration  in  the  country,  before  that  authority 
was  usurped,  to  which  reference  could  be  made  as  a  reason  for 
its  surrender.  If  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  power  of  selec- 
tion, in  the  hands  of  members,  was  a  clear  usurj)ation  of  ex- 
ecutive authority,  it  could  not  be  denied  that  it  was  acquired 
at  the  time  when  Parliament  began  to  stand  more  bravely  for 
liberty  and  common  rights. 

During  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  in  which  that  pat- 

\j  ronage  had  increased,  and  party  government  in  England  had 

I    acquired  its  solid  frame,  it  could  not  be  denied  that  liberty, 

!    education  and  political  power  had  vastly  increased  among  the, 

people.     In  no  country  is  usage  so  formidable  or  so  generally 

accepted  as  evidence  of  right  as  in  England.       By  far  the 

greater  part  of  the  aristocratic  influence  of  the  country  was 

against  an  innovation  so  democratic  in  spirit  and  so  hostile  to  that 

regard  for  wealth   and  conservativism  which  are  the  strength 

of  an  aristocracy.     All  available  arguments  were  used  for  and 

against  Parliamentary  patronage,  and  a  slight  outline  of  them 

may  be  useful : 


tt  WITH  WASHINGTON  SM. 
CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  17l' 


1.  To  the  argument  tliat  England  had  j^rospered  under 
favoritism,  it  was  repHed  that  she  had  also  prospered  while 
sharing  the  slave  trade,  neglecting  to  educate  her  people,  and 
denying  them  the  right  to  vote  ;  but  that  since  she  had  eman- 
cipated her  slaves,  widened  her  suffrage,  and  founded  a  better 
system  of  education,  she  had  prospered  all  the  more.  As  the 
body  of  her  people  had  become  more  intelligent,  and  class 
divisions  and  aristocratic  jjrivileges  had  decayed,  the  protest 
against  official  patronage  and  favoritism  had  gained  strength. 

2.  To  the  argument  that  the  old-fashioned  patronage  sys- 
tem was  necessary  to  the  stability  and  good  effects  of  parties, 
it  was  replied  that  they  had  never  been  more  vital,  vigorous,  or 
honest  than  in  that  period  during  which  examinations  had  been 
encroaching  upon  patronage.  On  an  average,  under  the  parti- 
san spoils  system,  a  party  had  not  been  able  to  keep  an  admin- 
istration in  power  more  than  three  and  one  half  years  ;  and  in 
1 834-5,  it  failed  to  keep  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  power  even  one 
year.  For  every  person  or  faction  that  was  conciliated  by  an 
appointment,  there  were  many  offended  who  had  sought  the 
same  appointment.  It  was  very  likely  that  changes  of  admin- 
istration would  be  less  frequent  if  there  were  no  appointments 
whatever  to  be  made.  If  appointments,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  increased  a  hundredfold,  was  it  not  clear  that  party 
struggles  would  be  more  bitter  and  politics  far  more  cornipt  ? 
Patronage  and  spoils  were  as  disastrous  to  the  moral  tone  and 
discij^line  of  a  party  as  the  right  of  sack  and  pillage  had  been 
to  armies  and  fleets.  The  theory  that  a  party  can  be  kept  to- 
gether only  by  the  hope  and  reality  of  spoils,  is  in  fact  but  the 
survivorship,  in  a  milder  form,  of  the  once  universal  theory 
that  an  army  could  only  be  raised  and  kept  in  efficiency  by 
the  prospects  of  pillage.  "  "When  the  measures  were  lirst 
proposed  for  the  abolition  of  patronage,  .  .  .  the  old 
political  officers  treated  it  with  the  like  incredulity  that  the 
old  Mahratta  chieftains  treated  the  notion  of  European  armies 
in  India  being  moved  or  maintained  in  the  field  without 
regular  plunder."  '  This  theorj'  is  wholly  false  alike,  in  war 
and  peace,  in  politics  and  in  military  service.  The  more 
largely  a  party  relies  upon  patronage  and  spoils,  and  the  less 

*  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  144. 


c 


172  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

it  aj)peals  to  the  public,  on  tlie  basis  of  principle  and  good 
administration,  the  more  certain  that  party  is  to  suffer  de- 
feat. The  simple  fact  that  year  by  year  the  popular  protest 
against  favoritism  and  the  demand  for  open  competition 
had  increased,  despite  all  the  efforts  of  party  leaders  to  arrest 
it,  was  conclusive  of  the  intrinsic  weakness  and  failure  of  the 
partisan  system.  As  the  result  of  his  broad  survey  of  British 
politics,  Mr.  Ilallam  declares,  "  There  is  no  real  cause  to 
apprehend  that  a  virtuous  and  enlightened  government  would 
find  difficulty  in  resting  upon  the  reputation  justly  due  to  it.'" 
3.  It  was  asserted  that  members  of  Parliament  lived  among 
the  peo]3le,  knew  the  local  needs  of  the  public  service,  and 
many  persons  well  qualified  to  supply  them.  Members,  like 
other  officers,  were  patriotic,  and  were  to  be  trusted  to  look  to 
the  general  welfare.  To  a  certain  extent,  this  argument  was 
admitted  to  be  well  founded.  The  best  evidence,  however,  of 
the  controlling  aim  of  members  in  holding  on  to  patronage, 
was  the  use  they  had  made  of  it  and  the  effects  of  their  action 
upon  the  administration.  That  use  was  being  year  by  year 
more  and  more  emphatically  condemned  by  the  j^eople.  It 
was  notorious  that  dependents  and  electioneering  agents  of 
members  abounded  in  the  public  service.  Salaries  and  super- 
numeraries were  not  reduced,  merely  because  such  legislation 
would  be  damaging  to  the  favorites  of  members.  Persons  not 
connected  with  the  executive  department  were  not  good 
judges  of  its  needs,  or  of  those  most  fit  to  serve  it.  Members 
of  Parliament  were  so  dej^endent  upon  votes  at  elections  as 
to  be  in  the  worst  possible  situation  for  forming  an  impartial 
judgment.  If  it  was  worthy,  competent  persons  that  mem- 
bers knew  in  their  localities,  and  whom  they  wished  to  get 
into  the  public  service,  why  do  such  persons  fear  the  test  of 
open  competition  ?  However  disinterested  the  motives  of 
many  members,  the  system  of  patronage  subjected  them  to 
dangerous  temptations,  and  was  far  too  seductive  for  the  patriot- 
ism of  not  a  few.  Tliey  knew  best  and  thought  best  of  those  who 
worked  most  for  them  in  their  political  contests.  They  could 
not,  without  the  greatest  self-denial,  refuse  to  promise  nomi- 
nations to  their  henchmen.  The  scandalous  suggestion  at- 
*  Const.  Hist.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  782. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  173 

taclicd  to  the  very  name  of  patronage,  and  the  avowed  pur- 
pose of  so  many  of  the  noblest  men  in  Parliament  to  be  rid  of 
its  exacting  and  humiliating  demands,  left  no  room  for  doubt 
on  these  points.  It  is  as  indefensible  in  principle  for  members 
to  select  executive  officers  as  it  would  be  for  the  Executive  to 
select  subjects  upon  which  Parliament  should  legislate,  or 
names  for  the  committees  it  should  appoint.  What  would  be 
said  if  the  Executive  should  claim  a  right  to  nominate  the  offi- 
cers of  either  House  of  Parliament  ? 

The  duty  of  a  member  of  Parliament  is,  in  its  very  nature, 
such  as  to  require  him  to  have  a  constant  and  supreme  regard 
to  the  effects  of  the  old  laws,  and  to  the  need  of  new  laws,  in 
their  relation  to  the  common  welfare  of  the  people.  And  this 
duty  is  inconsistent  with  his  use  of  an  appointing  power  (with- 
out executive  resj)onsibility)  through  which  he  becomes  inter- 
ested in  keeping  certain  persons  in  office,  in  bringing  other 
persons  into  office. '  Under  the  present  state  of  things,  bills 
are  supjDorted  or  opposed  in  reference  to  their  probable  effect 
upon  the  patronage  of  members.* 

It  is  inconsistent  with  that  independence,  dignity,  and  dis- 
interestedness which  the  people  require  in  a  legislator,  as  well 
as  a  bad  use  of  valuable  time  and  talents,  for  a  member  of 
Parliament  to  act  as  an  office  or  patronage  broker,  and  to  go 
about  from  department  to  department  and  office  to  office, 
begging  or  bullying,  to-day  this,  and  to-morrow  that  officer, 
in  order  to  make  a  place  for  perhaps  a  needy  dependent,  or 
perhaps  an  unscmpulous  and  unrewarded  supporter  at  an 
election. 

"  Considering  the  pressure  that  is  put  on  the  treasury  by 
men  having  powerful  Parliamentary  interest,  and  that  which 
is  put  on  the  heads  of  departments,  both  by  Parliamentary  in- 
terest and  by  the  claims  of  private  friendshij)  (and  the  object 

'  As  to  the  vicious  effects  of  Parliamentary  patronage,  sec  cLap.  xii. 

'  How  interest  in  office  may  intiuencc  tlie  conduct  of  a  legislator  and  may 
c\  se  even  a  great  and  pure  man  to  make,  perhaps  unconsciously,  a  dam- 
aging record  against  himself,  is  shown  in  the  letters  of  Macaulay  while  a 
member  of  Parliament.  "  There  were  points  in  the  bill  of  which  I  did  not 
approve,  and  I  only  refrained  from  stating  these  points  because  ari  office  of 
my  own  was  at  stake."  (Life  and  Letters  of  Macaulay,  by  Trevelyan,  voL 
L,  p.  165.) 

12 


174  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

i  \  of  the  persons  possessing  this  influence  is  generally  to  j)alm 
I  off  on  the  public  service  such  of  their  sons  or  nephews  as  are 

K  fit  for  nothing  else),  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  too  highly  the 
importance  of  a  preliminary  examination,  conducted  by  an 
independent  and  competent  Board  of  Examiners. ' '  ' 

The  fact  that  a  member  has  such  a  power  tempts  him  to 
promise  places  for  votes,  subjects  him  to  suspicions,  and 
brings  upon  him  solicitations  in  a  thousand  ways  as  pernicious 
as  they  are  troublesome.  They  degrade  the  morals  of  ofiicial 
life,  at  the  same  time  that  they  dissuade  the  best  men  from 
standing  for  Parliament.  Members  of  Parliament  were  worn 
out  wdth  the  annoyance  patronage  gave  them.*  The  possession 
of  patronage  by  members  introduces  a  corrupt  element,  and 
especially  the  damaging  belief  that  there  must  be  corruption, 
in  elections,  because  the  ability  of  a  member  to  control  places 
under  the  government  causes  the  more  active  and  unscrupulous 

f-  managers  of  local  politics  to  give  their  support  to  the  candidate 

;  who  will  promise  most  places  and  is  likely  to  work  most  per- 
sistently to  obtain  them.  Thereby  the  chances  of  the  most 
partisan  and  unscrupulous  candidate  are  increased,  and  the 
better  sort  are  disgusted  and  discouraged. 

5.  Patronage  in  members  also  tends  to  bring  the  public  ser- 
vice into  disrepute,  and  to  convert  public  officers  into  active 
politicians.  For  no  officer  can  have  great  self-respect,  or  much 
respect  for  his  fellows,  when  he  gets  his  office,  and  they  theirs, 
through  official  favor,  if  not  through  demoralizing  subservi- 
ency ;  nor  are  the  public  likely  to  have  a  better  opinion 
of  the  public  service  than  its  members  have  of  themselves.  A 
mistaken  duty  of  gratitude  is  held  to  require  that  one  who  is 
receiving  a  salary  obtained  for  him  by  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment should  serve  that  member  whenever  the  opportunity 
presents.  Thus  a  great  portion  of  the  public  service  is 
brought  into  subserviency  to  members  of  Parliament. 

6.  And  looking  beyond  any  particulars  that  can  be  speci- 
fied, it  is  plainly  discreditable  to  a  great  and  free  country,  and 
unbecoming  the  exalted  position  of  those  who  make  its  laws 

-      1  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  132. 

'  "  As  T  know  from  experience  that  it  would  relieve  members  of  Parlia- 
ment and  official  men  from  a  most  disagreeable  portion  of  their  labors." 
(Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  331.) 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  175 

and  interpret  its  constitution,  that  they  should  desire  to  pos- 
sess an  authority  to  barter  and  bargain  in  nominations,  or  should 
be  willing  to  use  their  official  influence  to  enforce  a  partisan 
test  upon  the  conscience  and  manhood  of  the  nation.  A  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  should  scorn  a  system  which  thus  inevitably 
degrades  his  high  ofl[ice,  subjects  him  to  suspicion,  and  de- 
moralizes the  politics  of  his  country.  The  final  decision  on 
these  issues  was  early  foreshadowed.  For  some  years  before 
1853,  it  seems  to  have  been  tacitly  conceded  by  the  leadere  of 
both  parties  that  Parliamentary  patronage,  if  not  the  whole 
partisan  system,  must  be  very  soon  abandoned.  The  great 
question  was,  What  should  be  put  in  its  place  ?  It  was  not 
regarded  as  a  mere  question  of  administrative  details  or  as 
having  its  greater  interest  in  its  probable  effects  upon  a  general 
election,  but  as  a  vital  issue  of  principle  and  national  policy, 
of  which  the  influence  would  be  felt  to  the  very  foundation  of 
government  and  of  social  order.  The  eminent  men  consulted 
by  the  administration — whether  hostile  or  friendly  to  a  com- 
petitive system — equally  recognized  its  grave  importance,  and  its 
sure  encouragement  of  education  and  of  liberty.  ' '  Why  add 
yet  another  to  the  many  recent  sacrifices  of  the  royal  preroga- 
tive ?...!...  call  your  attention  to  the  almost 
incalculable  magnitude  of  the  political  changes  which  the  pro- 
posed abdication  of  all  the  patronage  of  the  Crown  in  the  pub- 
lic offices  must  invoke.  .  .  .  The  proposal  to  select  can- 
didates for  the  civil  service  of  government  by  a  competitive 
examination  appears  to  me  to  be  one  of  those  great  public  im- 
provements, the  adoption  of  which  would  form  an  era  in  his- 
tory. ...  It  still  seems  to  me  that  the  ultimate  result  of 
open  competition  will  be  a  democratic  civil  service^  side  by  side 
with  an  aristocratic  legislature.  Open  competition  must  neces- 
sarily be  in  favor  of  the  more  numerous  class.  The  natural 
ability  of  that  more  numerous  class — i.e.^  of  the  lower  or  less 
rich  class — is  not  inferior  to  those  of  the  higher  or  richer 
class."  * 

Such  were  the  divergent  views  expressed.  Neither  party 
dared  defend  the  old  system  any  longer,  or  maintain  that  noth- 
ing better  was  possible.     Lords  Derby  and  Aberdeen,  the  min- 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  79.  80,  §2,  and  288.     , 


176  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

isters  and  party  leaders  of  the  period,  were  not  theorists,  but 
practical  statesmen  of  great  experience.  Both  appear  to  have 
reached  the  conclusion  that  a  reform  must  be  undertaken.  It 
fell  to  Lord  Aberdeen's  administration  to  begin  it.  But  be- 
fore considering  the  measures  for  introducing  open  comj)etition 
into  the  civil  service  at  home,  it  will  be  useful  to  refer  to  what 
was  done,  in  the  same  direction  and  about  the  same  time,  to 
improve  the  administration  of  British  India. 


CHAPTER  XY. 

OPEN   COMPETITION   INTKODUCED   INTO   BRITISII    INDIA. 

Patronage  a  failure  there. — Pass  examinations  and  a  college  course  found 
inadeciuate. — The  public  service  in  a  threatening  condition. — Open  com- 
petition provided  for  in  1853. — Report  of  Mr.  Macaulay  and  Lord  Ash- 
burton. — Nature  of  the  competition. 

Ati'ention  has  already  been  called  to  several  statutes  of  the 
reigii  of  George  III.,  which  showed  that,  thus  early,  careful 
study  had  been  made  into  the  conditions  of  good  administra- 
tion for  India,  and  that  official  corruption  was  even  then  more 
stringently  dealt  with  than  it  has  yet  been  in  analogous  cases 
in  this  country.  It  would  be  easy,  but  it  can  hardly  be  useful, 
to  refer  to  later  statutes,  framed  in  the  same  spirit,  under 
which  several  experiments  were  made,  in  the  hope  of  increas- 
ing the  purity  and  vigor  of  the  civil  service  of  India.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  patronage,  in  the  hands  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  having  control  of  its  administration,  was  found  to 
be  as  intolerable  as  such  patronage  was  at  home  in  the  hands 
of  members  of  Parliament.  For  this  reason,  it  had  been  pro- 
vided, long  before  1853,  that  those  designed  for  the  civil  ser- 
vice of  India  should  not  only  be  subjected  to  a  pass  exami- 
nation, but  should,  before  entering  the  service,  be  subjected 
to  a  course  of  special  instruction  at  Ilaileybury  College, 
a  sort  of  civil  West  Point.  This  college  was  abolished  in 
1854,  but  equivalent  instruction  was  elsewhere  provided  for. 
The  directors  had  the  patronage  of  nomination  for  such  in- 
struction, much  as  our  members  of  Congress  have  (or  ratlier 
take)  the  patronage  of  nomination  for  our  military  school. 
If  it  seems  strange  that  a  severe  coui-se  of  study,  for  two  yeare 
in  such  a  college,  was  not  sufficient  to  weed  out  the  incompe- 
tents which  patronage  forced  into  it,  we  must  bear  in  mind 


178  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

tliat  the  same  influence  which  sent  them  there  was  used  to 
keep  them  there,  and  that  it  has  required  a  high  standard  of 
proficiency  and  tiie  sternness  of  mihtary  discipline,  which  force 
out  a  very  great  portion  of  those  who  enter,  to  prevent  in- 
competent favorites  from  graduating  at  West  Point.  The 
ablest  administrators  England  could  supply  had  been  sent  to 
India  for  the  purpose  of  raising  its  civil  administration  to  a 
condition  compatible  with  the  public  safety.  Every  prom- 
ising method,  consistent  with  such  patronage,  or  short  of  a  rad- 
ical change  of  system,  had  been  tried.  The  evils  which  the 
India  administration  disclosed  grew  not  so  much  out  of  mere 
partisan  zeal  and  recklessness  as  out  of  the  general  demorali- 
zation sure  to  result  from  every  system  which  allows  an  ap- 
pointing power,  without  executive  responsibiUty,  as  a  mere 
appendage  to  a  jDublic  office,  or  permits  that  power  to  be  ex- 
ercised with  no  enforced  regard  to  the  worth  and  capacity  of 
those  nominated.  Both  the  Derby  and  the  Aberdeen  admin- 
istrations, in  1852  and  1853,  took  notice  that  the  civil  service 
was  in  a  condition  of  peril  to  British  India  ;  and,  without  dis- 
tinction of  I3arty,  it  was  agreed  that  radical  reforms  must  be 
promptly  made.  There  was  corruption,  there  was  inefficiency, 
there  was  disgraceful  ignorance,  there  was  a  humiliating  fail- 
ure in  the  government  to  command  the  respect  of  the  more 
intelligent  portion  of  the  people  of  India,  and  there  was  a 
still  more  alarming  failure  to  overawe  the  unruly  classes.  It 
was  as  bad  in  the  army  as  in  the  civil  offices.  "  In  the  years 
1851  to  1851,  both  inclusive,  437  gentlemen  were  examined 
for  direct  commissions  in  the  Indian  army  ;  of  this  number  132 
failed  in  English,  and  234  in  arithmetic.  The  return  requires 
no  comment."'  There  was,  in  short,  a  hotbed  of  abuses 
prolific  of  those  influences  which  caused  the  fearful  outbreak 
of  1857.  It  was  too  late,  M-hen  reform  was  decided  upon,  to 
prevent  the  outbreak,  but  not  too  late  to  save  British  suprem- 
acy in  India. 

A  cliange  of  system  was  entered  upon  in  1853.     The  36th 

and  37th  clauses  of  the  India  act  of  that  year  provided  ' '  that 

all  powers,  rights,  and  privileges  of  the  court  of  directors  of 

the  said  India  Company  to  nominate  or  appoint  persons  to  be 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  376,  377. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  179 

admitted  as  students  .  .  .  shall  cease  ;  and  that,  subject 
to  such  regulations  as  might  be  made,  any  person,  helng  a  nat- 
ural horn  suhject  of  her  Majesty^  who  might  be  desirous  of 
presenting  himself,  should  be  admitted  to  be  examined  as  a 
candidate."  ' 

Thus,  it  will  be  seen,  Indian  patronage  received  its  death- 
blow, and  the  same  blow  opened  the  door  of  study  for  the 
civil  service  of  India  to  every  British  citizen  ;  allowing  him 
to  come  and  prove  himself,  if  he  could,  to  be  the  better  man 
to  serve  his  country,  without  having  to  ask  the  consent  of  any 
director,  minister,  member  of  Parliament,  caucus,  or  party 
manager  whatever.  It  was  the  clearing  of  the  way  for  the 
introduction  of  the  merit  system,  pure  and  simple,  into  civil 
administration  in  the  home  government.  It  was  the  first  ex- 
ample of  the  kind — the  first  time  that  a  nation  had  declared 
in  its  statutes  that  its  officers  should  not  have  either  a  pa- 
tronage, a  privilege,  a  profit,  or  a  monopoly,  in  the  autho- 
rity of  saying,  irrespective  of  merit, ^  which  of  its  citizens  shall 
be  allowed  to  present  his  claims  for  a  place  in  its  service.  It 
was  the  intent  of  the  statute  that  open  competition  should 
take  the  place  made  vacant  by  the  death  of  patronage.  Mr. 
Macaulay,  as  is  well  known,  had  held  office  in  India  ;  and 
lie  and  Lord  Ashburton  were  the  leading  men  on  the  com- 
mittee which  the  administration  selected  to  draw  up  the  regu- 
lations to  which  the  statute  referred.  Their  report  was  made 
in  1854,  and  provided  for  open  competition,  in  which  the  best 
qualified  would  win  the  right  of  admission  to  the  proper  col- 
lege, where  two  years  of  special  study  would  complete  their 
preparation  for  entering  the  civil  scrvnce  of  India.  The  report 
was  approved,  and  thereupon  the  merit  system,  based  on  open 
competition,  was  for  the  first  time  put  into  actual  practice  on 
a  large  scale.  It  was  a  bold  and  radical  experiment  full  of 
peril  ;  and  it  may  be  said  to  have  been,  like  our  government, 
founded  almost  upon  theory  alone,  since  it  was  the  first  of  its 
kind  ever  adopted  by  a  nation.  The  rules  for  the  competition 
provided  for  extended  to  such  subjects  as  were  deemed  im- 
portant to  be  understood  l)y  those  engaged  in  the  Indian  ser- 

*  Report  on  India  Civil  Service,  London,  18TG,  p.  13. 
'  Except  the  law  of  Richard  IL 


180  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

vice.  In  order  to  determine  the  relative  standing  of  each  com- 
petitor, he  was  to  be  marked  in  each  subject,  and  the  average 
of  his  aggregate  marks,  in  all  the  subjects,  would  determine 
how  he  stood  as  compared  with  the  others  in  the  competition. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  aristocratic  influence  was  used  to 
set  up  a  standard  most  favorable  to  the  classes  from  which 
that  influence  came  ;  but  the  authors  declare  in  their  report 
that  they  have  adopted  a  standard  which  is  not  calculated  to  fa- 
vor any  class,  school,  or  other  institution  of  learning.  When  we 
consider  the  vast  population  and  revenue  of  India,  and  how 
vitally  the  honor  and  credit  of  Great  Britain  are  involved  in 
her  fate,  we  can  more  readily  comprehend  the  magnitude  of 
this  experiment  and  the  gravity  of  the  abuses  that  must  have 
forced  a  proud  and  practical  nation  to  enter  ujDon  it.  For  to 
it  were  committed,  not  the  hopes  of  a  party  merely,  but  the 
safety  of  an  empire.  At  the  proper  time,  the  results  of  this 
unique  exjjeriment  will  be  presented. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 

GOVERNMENT    INQUIRY    AND   REPORT   LEADING   TO   THE  INTRODUC- 
TION   OF    THE   NEW    SYSTEM   IN    1853. 

General  condition  of  the  service  in  1853. — How  it  compared  with  that  of  the 
United  States. — Should  reform  be  instituted  by  statute  or  by  executive 
action  ? — Sir  Stafford  Northcote  and  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  directed  to 
make  a  report. — Their  report. — They  recommend  open  competition. — 
Declared  to  be  founded  in  justice  and  favorable  to  the  education  of  the 
people. — How  report  received  at  first. — Parliament  hostile. — Government 
decided  not  to  ask  special  legislation. 

In  1853,  the  British  Government  had  reached  a  final  decision 
that  the  partisan  system  of  appointments  could  not  be  longer 
tolerated.  Substantial  control  of  nominations  by  members 
of  Parliament,  however  guarded  by  restrictions  and  improved 
by  mere  pass  examinations,  had  continued  to  be  demoralizing 
in  its  effect  upon  elections,  vicious  in  its  influence  upon  legisla- 
tion, and  fatal  to  economy  and  efficiency  in  the  departments. 
The  higher  public  opinion  demanded  the  extension  of  those 
better  modes  of  examination  for  admission  to  the  public  ser- 
vice, which,  in  their  limited  use,  had  been  so  manifestly  ben- 
eficial. Those  responsible  for  good  administration  had  a  deep 
sense  of  the  need  of  relief  from  that  pervading  solicitation  and 
intrigue  which  everywhere  stood  in  tlie  way  of  the  fit  dis- 
charge of  their  official  duties.  It  is  plain,  from  what  has 
already  been  said,  that  tlie  abuses  from  which  relief  was  to  be 
sought  were  by  no  means  of  that  gross  and  alarming  kind  whicli 
had  existed  in  earlier  times.  The  laws  and  the  policy,  to  which 
I  have  referred,  had  greatly  advanced  the  work  of  reform. 
But  public  opinion,  in  the  same  spint,  had  made  not  less  ad- 
vance ;  and  it  now  insisted  on  a  standard  of  efficiency  and 
purity  in  official  life  which  only  tlie  most  advanced  re- 
formers had,  half  a  century  before,  tliought  to  be  practi- 
cable in  public  affairs.     Both  the  importance  which   govern- 


182  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN. 

ment  accorded  to  administrative  methods  and  the  sound  prin- 
ciples embodied  in  the  statutes,  I  liave  cited  had,  doubt- 
less, contributed  to  elevate  the  public  standard  of  official  duty. 
A  brief  outline  will  enable  us  to  compare  that  standard  and  the 
character  of  administration  in  Great  Britain  in  1853  with  our 
own  at  this  time. 

1.  jSTeither  political  assessments  nor  any  other  form  of  ex- 
tortion, by  the  higher  officers  from  the  lower,  or  by  partisan 
leaders  from  any  grade  of  officials  or  government  employes, 
existed. 

2.  Officers  were  not  removed  for  the  purpose  of  making 
places  for  others  ;  and,  so  long  as  official  duty  was  properly 
performed,  no  one  was  proscribed  by  reason  of  his  political 
opinions. 

3.  In  the  great  departments  of  customs  and  internal  revenue 
(and  in  a  largo  way,  as  a  general  rule,  in  other  departments  also), 
the  higher  places  were  filled  by  promotions  from  the  lower  ; 
and  therefore  such  contests  as  we  have  over  these  higher  places 
were  unknown. 

4.  As  a  general  rule,  to  which  the  exceptions  were  rare, 
those  in  office  held  their  places  during  efficiency  and  good  be- 
havior (always  excepting  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  and  the 
few  high  political  officers  to  which  I  have  before  referred), 
and  therefore  nothing  analogous  to  the  fear  of  removal  and 
the  vicious,  partisan  activity  of  officials  in  connection  with 
elections  (which  that  fear  ]5roduces  under  our  system)  was 
known  in  Great  Britain. 

5.  The  law  of  Queen  Anne  (already  cited),  which  prohibits 
post  office  officials  trying  to  influence  elections,  and  the  laws 
of  George  III. ,  which  prevented  them  and  nearly  all  others  in 
the  civil  service  from  voting,  were  still  in  force,  and  they 
effectually  protected  the  freedom  of  elections  from  invasion 
by  executive  officers.  But  they  were  not  adequate  to  prevent 
members  of  Parliament  and  other  high  officers  from  giving 
places  to  those  who  had  worked  for  them  in  the  canvass.  The 
grosser  forms  of  bargaining,  however,  these  laws  had  sup- 
pressed. 

G.  Members  of  Parliament  monopolized  patronage,  but  they 
must  recommend  their  favorites  through  the  Patronage  Sec- 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  183 

retary  of  the  Treasury  ;  and  to  that  officer  the  lieads  of  de- 
partments and  offices  must  apply  for  clerks.  "  The  names 
are  sent  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who,  in  selecting 
them,  is  mainly  influenced  by  political  considerations.  They 
are  persons  of  whom  he  can  scarcely  ever  have  any  personal 
knowledge,  and  who  are  recommended  to  him  by  the  political 
supporters  of  the  government."  '  The  Secretary  parcelled 
out  places  and  salaries  with  as  much  exactness  as  a  prize  master 
ever  apportioned  the  proceeds  of  a  capture.  Secret  bargain- 
ing and  intrigue  was  greatly  limited  by  this  open  way  of  mak- 
ing merchandise  of  public  functions.  The  reduction  of  favor- 
itism and  nepotism  to  a  system  was  also  a  most  salutary  check 
upon  the  old  habits  of  members  of  Parliament  going  whining 
and  palavering,  or  bulling  and  blustering  (according  to  their 
temper,  or  that  of  the  official  whose  ante-room  they  besieged), 
from  department  to  department,  and  from  office  to  office,  seek- 
ing places  for  their  favorites. 

7.  There  were  pass  examinations  quite  as  effective  (to  say 
the  least)  as  any  we  have  applied,  between  nominations  and 
admissions  ;  and,  very  generally,  a  six-months  j)robation  fol- 
lowed before  an  actual  appointment  was  made.  In  addition, 
competitive  examinations  were  being  enforced  (in  mere  self- 
protection)  by  the  heads  of  some  of  the  offices  ;  and, 
altogether,  these  safeguards  were  no  inconsiderable  check  upon 
the  selfishness  and  wantonness  of  official  favoritism. 

8.  What  im'glit  be  called  a  spoils  system  (in  the  more  cor- 
iiipt  sense  of  the  term)  had  ceased  to  exist.  Personal  corrup- 
tion in  office  had,  for  a  considerable  period,  been  of  very  rare  oc- 
currence. The  public  service,  as  a  whole,  was  regarded  as  need- 
lessly costly  and  inefficient  ;  but  public  opinion  did  not  dis- 
trust official  honesty,  however  much  it  might  suspect  political 
partiality  and  prejudice.  In  public,  as  in  private  life,  there 
were  of  course  criminals,  but  on  moral  grounds  the  public  ser- 
vice, as  a  whole,  was  respectable. 

9.  A  strictly  partisan  system  of  appointments  (and  to  some 
extent  of  promotions)  prevailed.  The  right  of  nomination 
was  treated  as  an  official  perquisite.  Political  opinions  were 
recognized  as  paramount  qualifications  for  office.      Govern- 

'  Letter  Sir  George  Cornwall  Lewes,  July  20th,  1854,  Civil  Service  Papers, 
p.  108. 


IS-Jt  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN. 

ment  stood  before  the  people  as  a  grand  agency  (or,  in  tlie 
language  of  our  politics,  as  "  a  machine")  that  might  be  used 
to  keep  in  the  offices  those  who  at  any  time  held  them,  and  to 
perpetuate  the    rule    of    the   dominant  party.     The  system 
afforded  the  means  of  rewarding  those  intriguers  and  manip- 
ulators who  supply  the  corrupt  elements  of  elections,  and  beset 
and  seduce  every  officer  having  patronage.     The  gates  of  the 
public   service,    being  opened  by  influence    rather  than    by 
merit,  those  within  naturally  held  a  low  place  in  public  esteem, 
,*-        and  generally  deserved  nothing  more.     In  all  the  elections, 
■tt<f^'^*-       which  were  as  vigorously  contested  as  they  are  in  our  politics, 
i^Y*"^      the  corrupting  elements  of  patronage  and  partisan  coercion 
4^"'^"^'^^^  present  and  exhaled  an  atmos^ohere  of  suspicion  over 
f;K^  ^j  iu<-',  "tevery  issue  of  princi23le  and  of  character.     If  the  facts  that 
t^j^t^'' '  there  were  no  removals  and  but  few  promotions,  except  for 
My^^      cause,  made  this  vicious  element  far  weaker  than  in  our  poli- 

.,,ti^       tics,  it  was  vet  an  ever-active  source  of  debasement  and  dis- 
uC-^      //It 
J  M*"        trust.     In  short,  the  bestowal  of  office  was  made  upon  tlie 

theory  of  official  and  partisan  favoritism,  rather  than  upon 
that  of  duty,  justice,  or  the  public  interests,  as  the  supreme 
ends  of  government.  So  long  as  that  theory  prevailed,  gov- 
ernment and  those  who  served  it  could  never  liold  their  just 
place  in  the  honor  and  respect  of  the  people. 

10.  Stated  in  general  terms,  the  great  and  primary  source 
of  the  evils  in  the  British  civil  service,  in  1853,  was  executive 
patronage  in  the  hands  of  members  of  Parliament,  and  the 
obstruction  it  naturally  caused  in  the  way  of  bringing  in  and 
promoting  merit  and  of  carrying  on  the  administration 
economically  and  efficiently.  Questions  ujjon  the  enactment 
of  laws  were  continually  complicated  by  questions  of  Parlia- 
mentary patronage.  Members  were  indisposed  to  cut  down 
salaries,  or  reduce  numbers,  or  abolish  offices,  or  repeal  laws, 
when  their  own  favorites  might  be  those  prejudiced  by  the 
change.  The  men  it  was  for  their  interest  to  foist  upon  the 
service  were  not  unfrequently  persons  very  unfit  to  discharge 
its  duties.'  There  were  many  more  j^ersons  whom  members 
wished  to  oblige  than  there  were  vacant  places  in  the  Treasury. 

Such   were   the   evils  which  the  British  Government  set 

'  See  ante,  p.  147  to  149. 


^. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  185 

about  removing  in  1853.  How  tliey  compare  with  those  in 
our  service  is  too  obvious  for  remark.  In  one  particular — that 
of  patronage  in  the  hands  of  members  of  the  legislatui'e — the 
analogy  is  very  close,  though  in  consequence  of  our  short 
terms  for  so  many  officers  and  of  our  making  promotions  and 
removals  for  political  reasons,  that  evil  in  our  service  is  vastly 
greater.  Should  it  be  suggested  that,  if  our  service  were  in 
the  condition  of  that  of  Great  Britain  in  1853,  there  would  be 
slight  fault  found  with  it,  the  fact  would  be  only  further 
evidence  of  an  exacting  public  opinion  there,  which  is  due  to 
the  greater  attention  which  statesmen  have  for  a  lonij  time 
given  to  the  subject  of  good  administration. 

Ingenious  attempts  had  been  made,  especially  since  1832,  to 
remove  the  evils  of  the  partisan  system,  and.  to  make  it  satis- 
factory to  the  higher  public  opinion.  In  several  ways,  the 
abuses  of  the  system  had  been  curtailed.  The  more  it  was  re- 
stricted, the  purer  and  more  vigorous  party  government  had 
become.  The  results  of  all  experience  pointed  to  yet  more 
salutary  effects,  as  sure  to  result  from  an  utter  severance  of 
party  government  itself  from  a  mere  partisan  system  of  ap- 
pointments. The  last  twenty  years  had  been,  beyond  any  in 
English  history,  distinguished  by  liberal  measures  ;  and  the  time 
was  fortunate  in  enlightened  statesmen — Grey,  Aberdeen, 
Peel,  Hussell,  Cobden,  Gran\-ille,  Derby,  Palmerston,  Bright, 
Gladstone  among  them — whose  names  recall  the  great  tri- 
umphs of  justice,  Hberty,  education,  humanity,  and  national 
vigor  with  which  they  ^vill  stand  forever  associated.  Fortu- 
nately, these  men  had  no  faith  in  a  partisan  system,  nor  was 
there  one  of  them,  whichever  side  he  took  in  politics,  who  was 
willing  to  apologize  for  that  system,  or  failed  to  see  that  it  was 
hostile  alike  to  the  true  life  of  a  party  and  to  the  highest  inter- 
ests of  a  nation.  It  was  at  this  period  that  those  enlightened 
health  laws  were  enacted,  and  that  vigorous  sanitary  adminis- 
tration began,  which  have  been  an  inestimable  blessing  to  the 
British  people — and  especially  to  the  poor — and  wliich  are  also 
the  basis  of  our  best  Lim-s  and  regulations  for  the  protection  of 
the  public  health. 

The  administration,  with  Lord  Aberdeen  at  its  head,  prompt- 
ly decided   to   undertake   a   radical   and   systematic  reform. 


186  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

There  was  no  little  doubt  as  to  tlic  best  plan  to  pursue.  It 
was  at  first  proposed  to  begin  by  offering  a  bill  in  Parliament, 
it  being  tliouglit  tliat  nothing  short  of  joint  action  bj  the  leg- 
islative and  the  executive  would  either  be  at  once  effective,  or 
binding  upon  succeeding  administrations.  But  unanswerable 
objections  arose.  It  was  least  promising  of  success.  Mem- 
bers of  Parliament  were  much  more  likely  to  acquiesce  in 
reforms  proposed  by  the  executive  than  to  initiate  them  by 
statute.  They  were  not  well  informed  as  to  existing  methods 
or  real  needs  in  the  executive  department,  and  could  never 
devise  a  good  system,  even  if  such  an  undertaking  did  not 
too  directly  concern  both  their  future  patronage  and  their 
favorites  in  office. 

It  would  be  shirking  responsibility,  and  would  raise  sus- 
picions of  want  of  faith,  for  the  executive  not  to  take  the 
initiative  in  a  reform  within  its  own  sphere  of  duty.  None 
so  well  as  those  in  the  executive  department  knew  the  abuses 
or  the  true  remedy.  Upon  none  did  the  duty  so  clearly  rest 
to  remove  them.  Nowhere  else  was  there  so  much  existing 
authority  unused  for  that  purpose.  With  what  consistency 
could  the  executive  call  upon  Parliament  to  reform  adminis- 
tration, so  long  as  executive  authority  remained  unexercised, 
which,  if  not  wholly  adequate,  was  yet  sufficient  to  accom- 
plish much  in  that  direction  ?  Any  lack  of  courage — any  want 
of  faith  in  the  higher  sentiments  of  the  people — any  attempt 
to  shift  responsibility,  any  resort  to  the  tactics  of  its  opponents, 
on  the  part  of  the  Executive,  it  was  perceived,  must  be  fatal 
to  such  a  reform. 

"  It  lias  been  too  much  the  habit  of  tlie  House  of  Commons  to 
interfere  in  matters  for  which  not  they  but  tlie  executive  are  respon- 
sible. It  is  the  duty  of  the  executive  to  provide  for  the  efficient  and 
harmonious  working  of  the  civil  service,  and  they  cannot  transfer 
that  duty  to  any  other  body  far  less  competent  to  the  task  than 
themselves,  without  infringing  a  great  and  important  constitutional 
principle,  already  too  often  infringed,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the 
public  service."  ^ 

A  new  method  must  be  very  cautiously,  if  not  gi'adually, 
'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  271,  272. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  187 

introduced,  and  it  would  be  fatal  to  give  a  new  and  experi- 
mental system  the  rigidity  of  law  at  tlie  outset.  A  statute  may 
safely  declare  a  principle  of  action,  but  not  tlie  details  of  that 
action.  There  must  be  tentative  measures  gradually  adopted 
by  the  executive  to  the  public  needs. 

'*  I  may  as  well  say  that  there  was  a  considerable  amount  of  vacil- 
lation and  of  tentative  action,  proceedings  being  afterwards  recalled 
and  alterations  made  in  the  conduct  of  the  Treasury,  according  as  we 
got  fresh  light  and  information  ;  .  .  .  there  were  different  rules 
in  almost  every  department  ...  we  took  a  step  in  that  year 
which  we  saw  fit  to  retract  the  next  ycar."^ 

Why  should  the  administration  be  encumbered  by  reg- 
ulations, theoretically  devised,  which  might  soon  be  found 
impracticable,  but  wliicli  could  only  be  changed  by  the 
joint  act  of  the  executive  and  the  legislature  ?  Whether 
regard  be  had  to  the  usurpation  of  executive  power  by 
members  of  Parliament,  or  to  the  plain  duty  of  the  ex- 
ecutive, independent  of  that  encroachment,  it  was  felt  to  be 
too  clear  for  dispute  that  the  most  natural  and  the  most  effec- 
tive opening  of  a  reform  policy  would  be  for  the  executive  to 
set  an  example  of  the  discharge  of  official  duty,  in  the  sj^irit  of 
the  reform  proposed,  and  to  follow  it  up  by  the  fearless  ex- 
ercise of  all  executive  authority  in  that  direction.  Such  an 
example  would,  in  the  public  mind,  silence  all  suspicion  of 
lack  of  courage  or  lack  of  sincerity  ;  and,  in  Parliament,  it 
would  make  the  executive  invulnerable,  at  the  same  time  that 
it  would  turn  public  criticism  upon  members  and  other 
officers  who  should  continue  to  justify  abuses  in  order  that 
they  might  enjoy  patronage.  Consistency,  disinterestedness, 
fidelity  to  the  principles  on  which  the  refonn  was  to  be  based, 
at  whatever  cost,  were  felt  to  be  indispensable  to  its  success. 
Strong  opposition  was  to  be  expected,  but  it  must  be  boldly 
met  on  the  basis  of  the  reform  policy  alone. 

But  there  were  other  reasons  not  less  decisive.  The  greater 
effort  was  to  make  it  certain,  first,  that  the  executive  should 
be  at  liberty  to  select  the  best  persons,  as  the  constitution 
contemplated  ;  and,  next,  that  its  authority  should  be  faith- 

'  Evidence  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Report  of  Parliamentary 
Commission,  1873,  p.  237. 


18S  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

fully  exercised.  Tho  main  reform  sought  is  in  tlie  use  of  the 
executive  power  of  appointment.  If  Parliament  would  sur- 
render its  usurpations  and  not  again  interfere,  all  that  was 
needed  was  that  the  executive  should  perform  a  plain  duty 
within  its  constitutional  power.  The  authority  of  selecting 
officers  covers  the  whole  subject  of  their  character,  qualifica- 
tions, age,  promotions  and  removals  ;  and  that  of  executing 
the  laws  embraces  all  matters  pertaining  to  the  regulation  and 
discipline  of  public  servants.  If  left  free  to  do  so,  and  sup- 
plied with  the  necessary  funds,  the  executive  could  bring 
about  such  reform.  Why  then  should  the  executive  begin  the 
work  of  reform  in  its  own  department  with  a  request  that  Par- 
liament should  further  transcend  its  sphere  ?  "I  am  firmly 
persuaded  that  if  governments  w^erc  more  courageous  in  ef- 
fecting reforms  tending  to  the  benefit  of  the  community,  we 
should  hear  fewer  complaints  of  the  difficulties  arising  out  of 
the  conflict  of  party  interests."  "  After  a  few  quiverings 
in  the  balance,  the  scale  would  sink  down  on  the  side  of  those 
whose  wisdom  and  energy  were  steadily  toward  the  promotion 
of  the  common  weal. "  *  Why  assume  that  members  of  Parlia- 
ment are  as  w^ell  acquainted  with  business  in  the  departments 
as  the  experienced  officers  at  their  head  ?  Why  might  not 
the  executive  as  properly  take  part  in  making  the  business 
rules  of  the  House  of  Commons  as  the  House  interfere  with 
the  business  ritles  of  the  departments  ?  It  could  not  of  course " 
be  denied  that  Parliament  had  a  large  and  undefined  legisla- 
tive authority,  that  in  many  ways  reached  within  tho  depart- 
ments ;  and  it  unquestionably  extended  to  salaries  and  to  all 
matters  involving  expenditures.  But,  at  most.  Parliament 
should  be  only  called  upon  to  approve  regulations  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  executive  officers,  and  that  approval  was  implied 
in  voting  an  appropriation.  The  course  that  members  of 
Parliament  would  pursue  was  predicted  with  remarkable  fore- 
sight, and  the  prediction  has  been  almost  as  applicable  to  what 
we  have  seen  in  this  country,  as  to  what  took  place  in  the  Brit- 
ish Parliament  ;  though,  wdien  once  the  members  of  that  body 
had  committed  themselves  to  the  reform  before  the  nation, 
they  did  not  arrest  it  by  withholding  money  to  pay  its  cost. 
'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  21,  23. 


CIVIL  SERVI€E   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  189 

*'  I  think  th3  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  would  in 
general  support  this  scheme.  Many  of  them  would  gladly  be  relieved 
from  the  importunities  to  which  they  are  now  exposed.  Many  more 
would  advocate  the  new  arrangement  from  a  sincere  conviction  of  its 
advantages.  Of  those  who  were  inclined  to  oppose  it,  some  would 
dissemble  their  aversion,  through  unwillingness  to  come  forward  at 
all  as  the  champions  of  a  system  which  they  knew  to  be  corrupt  ;  and 
other  would  be  unable  to  offer  more  than  a  feeble  resistance,  being 
obliged  to  rest  their  arguments  upon  grounds  different  from  those  on 
which  their  views  were  really  founded.  They  would  raise  objec- 
tions on  small  points  of  detail,  or  would  assert  in  a  sweeping  way 
that  the  plan  was  complicated,  expensive,  impracticable,  and  so 
forth."  » 

Such  views  prevailed,  and  the  original  plan  was  changed. 
It  was  decided  that,  in  the  outset,  no  application  should  be 
made  to  Parliament.  The  reform  should  be  undertaken  by 
the  EngHsh  Executive  (that  is,  the  Queen,  and  ministers,  or 
administration)  for  the  time  being.  The  first  step  decided 
upon  was  an  inquiry  into  the  exact  condition  of  the  public 
service.  Sir  Stafford  Xorthcote  (the  present  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer)  and  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  were  appointed  in 
1853  to  make  such  inquiry  and  a  report.  Thev  submitted  their 
report  in  November  of  the  same  year. 

I  have  no  space  to  do  justice  to  this  able  document,  but  a 
few  sentences  will  indicate  its  spirit  and  some  of  the  abuses  of 
patronage  for  which  it  proposed  a  remedy. 

"  Admission  into  the  civil  service  is  indeed  eagerly  sought  after, 
but  it  is  for  the  unambitious  and  the  indolent  or  incapable  that  it  is 
chiefly  desired.  Those  whose  abilities  do  not  warrant  the  expecta- 
tion that  they  will  succeed  in  the  open  professions,  where  they  must 
encounter  the  competition  of  their  cotemporaries,  and  those  whose 
indolence  of  temperament  or  physical  infirmities  unfit  them  for 
active  exertions,  are  placed  in  the  civil  service.  .  .  .  Parents  and 
friends  of  sickly  youths  endeavor  to  attain  for  them  employment  in 
the  service  of  the  government.  .  .  .  The  character  of  the  indi- 
viduals influences  the  mass,  and  it  is  thus  that  we  often  hear  com- 
plaints of  official  delays,  official  evasions  of  difficulty,  and  official  in- 
disposition to  improvement." 

'  CivU  Service  Papers,  pp.  21,  23. 

13 


190  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

A  system  of  competitive  examinations  is  recommended 
which  will  test  personal  fitness  for  the  public  service. 

"  In  the  examinations  which  we  have  recommended,  we  con- 
sider that  the  rigTit  of  competing  should  he  open  to  all  persons 
of  a  given  age, ' '  subject  to  satisfactory  proof  of  good  health 
and  good  moral  character. 

These  examinations  "  cannot  be  conducted  in  an  effective 
and  consistent  manner  throughout  the  service  while  it  is  left 
to  each  department  to  determine  the  nature  of  the  examina- 
tion and  to  examine  the  candidates. ' ' 

The  report  was  accomjDanied  with  a  scheme  for  carrying  the 
examinations  into  effect,  from  which  I  quote  the  following 
passages,  as  seeming  to  show  that,  from  the  very  outset,  the  re- 
form was  neither  royal  nor  aristocratic,  but  was  advocated  in 
the  interest  of  common  justice  and  population  education  : 
"  Such  a  measure  will  exercise  the  happiest  influence  in  the 
education  of  the  lower  classes  throughout  England,  acting  by 
the  surest  of  all  motives — the  desire  a  man  has  of  bettering 
himself  in  life.  .  .  .  They  will  have  attained  their  situa- 
tions in  an  independent  manner  through  their  own  merits. 
The  sense  of  this  conduct  cannot  but  induce  self-respect  and 
diffuse  a  wholesome  respect  among  the  lower  no  less  than  the 
higher  classes  of  official  men.  .  .  .  The  effect  of  it  in 
giving  a  stimulus  to  the  education  of  the  lower  classes  can 
hardly  he  overestimated. ' ' '  Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  re- 
port. This  was  the  theory  of  the  merit  system,  then  first  ap- 
proved by  an  English  administration  for  the  home  government. 
I  hardly  need  repeat  that  the  examinations  referred  to  as  ex- 
isting were  (with  small  exception)  mere  pass  examinations,  and 
that  the  new  examinations  proposed  were  open,  competitive 
examinations,  being  such  as  I  have  before  explained.  The 
examinations  were  to  be  general,  so  as  to  reach  those  qualifica- 
tions which  every  person  in  the  public  service  ought  to 
possess,  and  also  special  to  the  extent  requisite  in  the  various 
parts  and  grades  of  the  service,  to  ascertain  the  peculiar  qual- 
ifications there  needed. 

A  central  board  of  examiners,  with  common  duties,  in  all 
the  departments  and  offices,  is  recommended  as  essential  to 
'  Civil  Service  Papers,  Appendix,  pp.  4-31. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  191 

uniformity  and  independence  in  enforcing  tlie  rules  of  admis- 
sion and  probation.  Sucli  a  body,  for  conducting  them,  would, 
we  may  readily  see,  impart  the  greatest  vigor,  uniformity,  and 
justice  to  open  competition.  The  proposal  that  merit  should 
be  the  basis  of  promotion  was  of  course  quite  hostile  to  the 
spirit  of  royalty  and  conservatism.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that 
the  report  does  not  advise  that  any  officers  should  be  dismissed 
because  they  came  in  under  the  old  system  and  were  imbued 
\nt\i  its  spirit.  If  they  should  not  act  in  good  faith  under 
the  new  system,  they  could  be  dismissed  for^ause.  English 
statesmen  have  always  regarded  the  government  itself,  and  not 
its  subordinates,  as  responsible  for  low  qualifications  and  ex- 
cessive numbers  in  the  public  service  ;  and  poor  clerks  have 
never,  as  with  us,  been  suddenly  and  ruthlessly  dismissed  into 
the  streets  without  notice  or  other  employment.  The  report 
proceeds  upon  the  theory  that  a  complete  removal  of  all  abuses 
at  once  is  impossible.  But  if  merit,  and  not  favoritism,  should 
hereafter  secure  places  in  the  public  service,  its  whole  spirit 
would  be,  at  once,  changed  and  its  reasonable  independence  of 
politics  would  be  in  a  short  period  established.  Promotion 
from  the  places  to  the  higher  would  inspire  and  reward  honor- 
able ambition,  and  in  a  few  years  the  whole  service  would  be- 
come as  distinguished  for  administrative  capacity  as  it  had  been 
for  incapacity  and  servility.  We  shall  see  to  what  extent  these 
hopes  have  been  realized. 

But  the  great  feature  of  the  report,  which  made  it  really  a 
proposal  for  the  introduction  of  a  new  system,  was  its  advo- 
cacy of  open  competition.  Except  the  experiment  just  put 
on  trial  in  India,  no  nation  had  adoj^ted  that  system.  It  was 
as  theoretical  as  it  was  radical.  Wliile  it  seemed  sound  in 
principle,  and  had  worked  well  in  a  small  way,  when  it  had 
been  tried  in  isolated  places  in  England  and  France,  no  one 
could  be  certain  what  might  be  its  general  consequences. 
Caution,  candor,  and  a  fair  field  were  needed  for  its  trial.  It 
was  of  course  particularly  exposed  to  ridicule  and  misrepre- 
sentation. 

It  soon  appeared  that  such  a  trial  was  too  much  to  expect. 
Speculators  in  patronage,  partisan  leaders,  high  officers  having 
some  fragments  of  the  appointing  power,  and,  especially,  all 


192  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN. 

the  scheming  members  of  Parliament  who  had  appropriated 
the  bulk  of  that  power,  at  once  took  alarm  and  combined  for 
common  attack  and  self-defence.  They  saw  that  their  usurpa- 
tion was  threatened,  not  so  much  by  the  executive  regaining 
what  they  had  pillaged  as  by  the  people  having  the  public 
service  so  freely  opened  to  them  that  the  most  meritorious 
could  enter  it  without  their  consent — without  any  other  pass- 
port than  superior  merit.  Such  freedom  and  justice  would 
be  fatal  to  all  official  monopoly  and  all  Parliamentary  dictation. 
If  the  cabman's  son  John  and  the  farmer's  boy  Peter,  and  the 
orphan  at  the  head  of  his  class  in  the  public  schools,  could 
boldly  go  before  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  in  open  com- 
petition, and  prove  themselves  to  be  better  qualified  to  enter 
the  public  service  than  the  bisliops^s  blockhead  boy,  the 
squire's  or  the  earl's  favorite,  the  member's  electioneering 
clerk  or  decayed  butler,  or  the  party  manager's  most  serviceable 
henchman,  then,  indeed,  it  would  be  pretty  plain  that  a  new 
system  had  come  in  and  that  patronage  and  favoritism  must 
go  out.  This  was  too  much  for  official  and  average  Parlia- 
mentary patriotism,  too  much  for  conservative  old  England 
— too  dangerous  for  any  country  M^thout  a  precedent  to  bring 
about  all  at  once.  A  chorus  of  ridicule,  indignation,  lamenta- 
tion, and  wrath  arose  from  all  the  official  and  partisan  places 
of  politics.  The  government  saw  that  a  further  struggle  was 
at  hand.  It  appeared  more  clear  than  ever  that  Parliament 
was  not  a  very  hopeful  place  in  which  to  trust  the  tender 
years  of  such  a  reform.  Its  tnie  friends  were  the  intelligent 
classes  outside  official  life. 

In  England,  as  with  us,  the  most  active  opponents  of  the 
reform  were  those  who  had  j^romised  places  and  those  who 
hoped  soon  to  gain  them  through  official  favoritism  and  j^arti- 
san  coercion.  The  appeal,  therefore,  it  was  seen,  must  be  made 
to  the  people  themselves.  They — that  is,  such  of  them  as  are 
neither  in  office  nor  seeking  it — %vere  the  tnie  and  almost  the 
only  disinterested  friends  of  the  new  system.  With  this  view, 
the  executive  caused  the  report  to  be  sj^read  broadcast  among 
the  people,  and  also  requested  the  written  opinions  of  a  large 
number  of  persons  of  worth  and  distinction  both  in  and  out  of 
office.     The  report  was  sent  to  Parliament,  but  no  action  upon 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  193 

it  was  requested.  Tlie  situation  will  be  recognized  as  resem- 
bling our  own  when,  under  General  Grant's  administration,  a 
similar  report  was  prepared  ;  but  the  final  executive  action  in 
the  two  countries  was  widely  different. 

The  responses  made  in  1854:  are  printed  in  an  interesting 
volume,  to  which  I  have  already  referred  as  "  Civil  Service 
Papers."  The  hostility  manifested  in  Parliamentary  and 
partisan  circles  soon  appeared  to  be  very  fonnidable.  But 
there  were  not  wanting  able,  disinterested  members  who  were 
ready  to  support  the  reform  with  patriotic  zeal.  At  the 
other  end  of  the  scale  of  membership,  there  were  partisan  in- 
triguers and  noisy  demagogues  horrified  at  such  an  attack 
upon  Parliamentary  perquisites  which  had  been  enjoyed  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years,  and  without  which,  they  declared, 
no  party  could  live,  if  indeed  the  constitution  could  survive. 
They  were  as  ready  to  defend  their  monopoly  as  they  were  to 
defend  their  dcg  kennels,  their  inherited  acres,  or  their  seats 
at  the  horse  races.  Between  these  extremes  were  many  good- 
ish  members,  some  of  whom  would  faintly  support  reform  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  the  annoyance  and  the  dirty  work  imposed 
by  patronage,  and  others  of  whom  had  just  faith  and  princi- 
ple enough  to  vote  on  what  they  might  think  would  be  the 
winning  side.  The  result  of  an  early  appeal  to  Parliament 
would  therefore  be  very  doubtful,  to  say  the  least  ;  nor  was 
the  first  response  of  the  people  (perhaps  to  be  made  before 
they  had  fully  comprehended  the  issue)  by  any  means  certain. 
"When  we  consider  that  an  English  administration  has  no  other 
tenure  than  the  support  of  a  majority  in  Parliament,  so  that  an 
adverse  majority,  for  a  single  day,  might  compel  the  resigna- 
tion of  a  ministry,  we  can  appreciate  that  such  an  appeal  to 
the  people  required  faith  and  courage  of  a  high  order. '  Those 
high  qualifications  were  not  wanting  in  the  ministry  in  power. 
The  government,  faithful  to  its  pledges  and  its  sense  of  duty, 
resolved  to   persist  in  the  reform  at  all  hazards.     The  only 

*  "  Those  early  supporters  of  it  miglit  be  counted  upon  the  fingers,  and  if 
the  matter  had  been  put  to  the  vote  in  London  society  or  tlie  chibs,  or  even 
in  Parliament  itself  by  secret  voting,  it  would  have  been  rejected  by  an  over- 
whelminT  majority." — Letter,  Sir  Charles  Trcvelyan  to  the  Author.  See 
Appendix. 


194  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

alternatives  were  success  or  repudiation  and  disgrace.  It  de- 
cided to  notify  its  purpose  to  Parliament,  but  not  to  ask  any 
assistance  at  that  time.  Accordingly,  tlie  Queen's  Speech,  on 
the  opening  of  Parliament,  in  1854,  contained  the  following 
language  : 

' '  The  establishment  required  for  the  conduct  of  the  civil 
service,  and  the  arrangements  bearing  upon  its  conditions, 
have  recently  been  under  review  ;  and  I  shall  direct  a  plan  to 
be  laid  before  you  which  will  have  for  its  object  to  improve 
the  system  of  admission,  and  thereby  to  increase  the  efficiency 
of  the  service."  * 

Ko  such  plan,  however,  was  laid  before  ParHament  at  the 
time  first  contemplated.  That  body  showed  itself  too  selfish, 
unpatriotic,  and  hostile.  But  before  considering  the  next  step 
taken  by  the  administration,  I  ought  to  notice  the  response 
made  to  the  report  by  those  of  whom  the  government  re- 
quested opinions. 

'  See  Report  on  Civil  Service  Appointments,  1860,  p.  v. 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

HOW   THE   NEW    SYSTEM   WAS    RECEIVED. 

Politicians  and  many  offlcei-s  oppose. — Nonpartisans  generally  approve. — 
Great  disparity  of  views. — It  is  Chinese. — It  is  sound  and  salutary. — It  is 
Utopian. — It  is  wise  and  just. — It  shoots  above  human  virtue. — It  responds 
to  public  morality  and  intelligence.— It  is  ridiculous.— It  is  statesmanlike. 
— It  is  the  dream  of  doctrinaires. — It  has  the  marks  of  practical  states- 
manship. —The  present  servnce  is  the  best  the  world  ever  saw. — The  pres- 
ent service  is  disgracefully  incompetent  and  costly. — The  new  system 
endangers  the  aristocracy  — The  spoils  system  defended.— Ridicule. — The 
new  plan  a  bureaucracy. — It  is  the  opposite  of  a  bureaucracy. 

The  volume  of  replies  to  which  I  have  referred  '  discusses 
the  report  of  1853  from  every  point  of  ^'iew.  The  prejudices 
of  aged  officers  wedded  to  routine,  the  natural  hostility  and 
jealousy  of  partisan  managers,  the  indignation  and  anger  of  a 
certain  class  of  members  of  Parliament,'  the  zeal  of  great  re- 
formers hke  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  honorable  ambition  of 
young  men  ^vishing  to  rise  by  merit  and  scorning  the  degrad- 
ing ways  of  subserviency,  the  alarm  of  old  croakers  and  pessi- 
mists, and  the  sober  thought  of  good  citizens  in  many  callings 
— each  and  all  found  expression.  There  was  no  small  differ- 
ence of  opinion  as  to  what  would  come  of  an  experiment  so 
novel  and  so  radical.  The  journals  and  reviews  of  England 
resounded  with  the  fierce  debate.  I  might  fill  pages  with  in- 
teresting illustrations.  Sarcasm,  ridicule,  denunciation,  gloomy 
prognostications  of  evil,  high  faith  in  the  better  sentiments,  the 

'  Civil  Service  Papers  published  in  1855. 

'  The  public  press  did  not  spare  the  selfish  and  partisan  members  of 
Parliament.  "  Had  not  a  long  course  of  elective  corruption  blindul  the 
constituencies  to  its  true  import,  and  given  memlwrs  an  instinctive  antipathy 
to  any  method  for  curtailing  the  means  of  corruption,  such  a  mea.sure 
would  have  been  hailed  with  applause." — Times,  August  11,  18.">4,  Civil 
Service  Papers,  p.  250. 


196  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

cunning  sophisms  oi  demagogues,  and  tlie  calm  reasoning  of 
statesmen,  M'^ere  heard  by  turns.  Those  whose  patronage  and 
whose  mercenary  prospects  of  rising  were  threatened  were 
especially  exasperated,  and  insisted  that  their  rights  were 
being  invaded.  Xo  bellicose  woman  at  Billingsgate  ever  de- 
fended her  herring-stand  with  greater  lierceness,  or  greater 
apparent  faith  in  the  righteousness  of  her  cause,  than  some  of 
the  monopolists  of  patronage  brought  to  the  support  of  their 
claim  that  justice,  good  policy,  and  the  stability  of  the  Eng- 
lish constitution  itself  required  that  they  should  each  keep 
a  toll-gate  to  the  public  service  ever  open  to  favor  and  shut 
to  merit.  So  complete  was  the  discussion  that  subsequent 
originality  has  not  been  possible  ;  and  those  who  now  employ 
stale  sarcasm  and  ridicule,  better  uttered  at  that  time,  must  be 
pardoned.  Some  denounced  it  as  a  Chinese  system,  because 
the  Chinese  were  said  to  have  originated  examinations  ;  not 
remembering  that  the  same  reasoning  would  deprive  English- 
men of  gunpowder,  the  compass,  and  the  art  of  printing. 
Some  sneered  at  the  new  system  as  "a  perfect  novelty,  never 
hitherto  enforced  in  any  commonwealth  except  that  of 
Utopia  ;"  '  not  of  course  bearing  in  mind  that  free  speech, 
which  they  so  much  enjoyed,  was  also  original  in  that  re- 
nowned commonwealth.  One  high  officer,  a  liight  Honorable, 
a  Knight  Commander  of  the  Order  of  the  Bath,  and  a  Secre- 
tary of  a  great  department,  commends  his  objections  by  using 
the  familiar  argument  (sound  enough  when  fairly  applied) 
that  rulers  must  not  attempt  what  is  not  practicable  in  their 
day  and  generation.  lie  says  :  "  The  law-giver  may  keep 
ahead  of  public  opinion,  but  he  cannot  shoot  out  of  sight  of 
the  moral  standard  of  his  age  and  country.  The  world  we 
live  in  is  not,  I  thijik,  lialf  moralized  enough  for  the  accept- 
ance of  a  scheme  of  such  stern  morality  as  this."  He  was  re- 
minded that  public  officers  are  very  liable  to  mistake  official 
opinion  for  the  public  opinion,  and  hence  often  shoot  far  be- 
low the  moral  tone  of  tlie  people.  He  showed  before  he  got 
through  that  it  was  fears  about  prerogative  and  not  about 
morality  that  really  troubled  him.     "Why  add  another,"  he 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  77. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  197 

exclaimG,  "  to  the  many  recent  sacrifices  of  the  royal  prerog- 
ative ?"  ' 

Just  as  with  us,  there  were  those  Vv'ho  thought  tlic  old  sys- 
tem a  piece  of  perfection.  "I  reply  that  I  do  not  consider 
that  system  capable  of  improvement,  but  think  it  hetter  than 
any  other  that  has  heen  siiggested,  or  that  I  am  able  to  sug- 
gest."' 

Even  distinguished  officers  (a  Eight  Honorable  Secretary  of 
State  and  the  Secretary  of  the  National  Council  for  Education) 
had  the  hardihood  to  defend  the  worst  features  of  the  old  par- 
tisan spoils  system  itself,  in  language  that  would  have  brought 
a  blush  of  shame  even  to  the  face  of  the  author  of  the  declara- 
tion that  "  to  the  victor  belongs  the  spoils." 

"  The  principal  ministers  of  the  Crown  (he  said)  are  themselves 
so  ill  remunerated,  that  those  high  trusts  are  practically  confined  to 
persons  born  to  lanple  fortunes.  .  .  .  But  the  range  of  choice 
will  become  still  more  narrow,  ...  if  the  remuneration  of  these 
great  offices  be  further  reduced,  by  depriving  the  holders  of  them  of 
all  their  most  valuable  patronage.  .  .  .  Considering  the  long 
habituation  of  the  people  to  political  contests,  in  which  the 
share  of  office,  not  merely  for  its  emoluments,  but  also  for  the  sake 
of  influencing  administration,  reckons  among  the  legitimate  prizes  of 
war,  .  .  .  and  that  rank  and  wealth  .  .  .  hold  the  keys 
of  many  things,  ...  I  should  hesitate  long  before  I  advised 
such  a  revolution  of  the  civil  service."  ' 

The  argument,  so  familiar  with  us,  that  the  corruption  we 
have  is  an  inevitable  evil  that  comes  ''  with  the  best  civ^l  ser- 
vice the  world  has  ever  seen,"  is  by  no  means  original  here, 
but  is  a  stale  falsehood  bom  of  English  fatalism  and  con- 
ceit.* "  Jobbing  is  a  part,  though  an  ugly  part,  of  the  j}rice 
which  a  free  people  pay  for  their  constitutional  liherty.  So 
long  as  there  are  Parliamentary  constitutents,  they  will  ask 
favors  of  members  of  Parliament,  and  members  of  Parliament 
of  ministers.     .     .     ."  ^ 


'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  T8,  79.  '  Ibid.,  p.  CO:]. 

»  Il)id..  pp.  104  and  105.  *  Ibid.,  p.  C.")3. 

»  Ibid. 


198  CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

PoHtc  sarcasm  was  ingeniously  applied  by  liigli  officials  in 
language  of  which  this  is  a  specimen  : 

"  I  should  be  extremely  happy  if  any  scheme  occurred  to  me  by 
■which  pure,  simple,  unadulterated  merit,  without  the  slightest  mix- 
ture of  other  ingredients,  could  be  made  the  sole  criterion  of  advance- 
ment. If  such  a  discovery  should  ever  be  made,  it  would  probably  be 
founded  upon  some  new  view  of  human  nature,  and  would  certainly 
not  be  confined  in  its  operation  to  the  civil  service,  but  would  extend 
its  benign  influence  over  all  services,  trades  and  professions."  ^ 

Some  argmnents  are  noticeable  as  not  having  been  yet  re- 
produced in  our  discussions  ;  for  example,  in  one,  it  is  urged 
that  if  patronage  is  taken  from  members  of  Parliament,  they 
will  utterly  neglect  the  civil  service,  whereby  it  will  go  to  de- 
cay ;  and,  in  another,  that  the  real  sufferers  by  existing  abuses 
are,  not  the  public  service  or  the  people,  but  "  the  members 
of  Parliament  and  heads  of  departments,  .  .  .  who  need 
sheltering  from  the  irresistible  attacks  of  their  constituents  and 
supporters,  with  which  they  often  unwillingly  and  from  neces- 
sity comply. ' '  * 

The  specious  and  familiar,  old  argument — the  argument  that 
no  part  of  an  abuse  should  be  remedied  unless  the  whole  can 
be  removed  at  once — that  no  thief  should  be  punished  unless 
all  gamblers  are  sent  to  prison  at  the  same  time — was  put  with 
much  adroitness,  with  a  view  of  arousing  the  fears  and  hostility 
of  the  Established  Church  and  of  the  owners  of  its  patronage. 
Why  should  patronage  and  favoritism,  in  bestowing  offices,  be 
stopped  (the  writer  asks),  unless  the  sale  of  livings  (that  is,  the 
sale  of  the  right  to  be  a  minister  in  the  State  Church)  shall  also 
be  forbidden?  "  If  the  government  will  absolutely  proclaim 
the  abstract  principle  that  nepotism  is  not  to  be  endured,  what 
will  they  say  of  nepotism  in  the  Church  ?  There  it  is  not  an 
accident,  but  a  system.  It  is  an  abuse,  not  furtively  perpet- 
uated, but  ostentatiously  avowed."  ^ 

By  some  the  new  system  was  opposed  on  the  ground  that 
the  standard  of  examinations  would  be  fixed  so  high  that  none 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  394. 

''  Ibid.,  p.  357.     Civil  Service  Report,  1860,  p.  224. 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  78. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  199 

but  learned  pedants  and  college-bred  aristocrats  could  gain  ad- 
mission ;  and,  by  others,  it  was  opposed  for  exactly  the  oppo- 
site, that  it  would  be  fixed  so  low  that  gentlemen  would  be 
overslaughed  by  a  band  of  conceited,  impracticable  school- 
masters and  book- worms,  together  with  crowds  of  bright,  vul- 
gar fellows  from  the  lower  classes  ;  so  that  the  high  flavor  of 
honor  and  gentility,  if  not  the  moral  tone  of  the  service,  would 
be  lost.  ' '  Another  objection  to  your  system  of  competing 
examinations  is  to  be  found  in  the  stimulus  that  would  be 
given  by  it  to  over-education.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
great  numbers  of  youths  who  are  now  content  to  seek  to  earn 
their  subsistence  in  the  lower  ranks  .  .  .  would  be  at- 
tracted by  the  more  captivating  prospect  of  these  government 
offices."  ^  In  reply,  Mr.  Mill  and  others  commended  the  new 
system  because  it  gave  the  poor  and  the  humble  an  equal 
chance  upon  their  merits,  and  they  declared  that  if  the  sons  of 
the  rich  and  the  high-born  could  not,  on  that  basis,  hold  their 
own,  the  quicker  they  were  driven  from  the  public  service  the 
better.  There  were  also  attacks  upon  the  new  system  on  the 
ground  that  it  would  so  largely  draw  young  persons  of  ability 
and  attainments  into  the  public  service,  that  private  business, 
the  pulpit,  and  the  bar  would  suffer  for  want  of  them.  To 
which  it  was  replied  that  no  affairs  were  so  great  and  impor- 
tant as  those  of  the  nation,  and  that  they  demanded  the  ser- 
vice of  the  best  of  her  children,  in  which  their  example  and 
their  influence  would  be  most  beneficent  in  all  the  ranges  of 
private  life.  At  the  worst,  it  would  be  easy  to  lower  the  stand- 
ard, if  the  nation  should  ever  be  found  to  be  too  ably  and 
worthily  served.  It  was  claimed  by  some  that  the  new  sys- 
tem would  tend  to  a  bureaucracy,  and  thus  become  dangerous 
to  liberty.  The  reply  was  that  no  system  was  so  repugnant 
and  fatal  to  a  bureaucracy  as  that  proposed.  It  opened  the 
public  service  to  every  one  upon  equal  terms,  and  those  who 
came  in  entered  it  under  the  least  possible  commitment  or 
obligations  that  would  compromise  their  independence.  The 
essential  conditions  of  a  bureaucracy,  in  a  public  service,  were, 
firet,  that  those  in  office  should  command  the  gate  of  that  ser- 
vice, thus  selecting  those  who  should  enter  it  ;  and  second, 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  133  and  134. 


.^00  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

that  the  higher  officers  should  domineer  over  the  lower. 
These  were  the  very  conditions  of  the  old  system  wliicli  the 
new  was  intended  and  was  especially  adapted  to  remove. 
How  could  a  bureaucracy  arise  under  a  system  where  all  the 
old  officers  in  the  service  united  could  not  prevent  a  young 
man  of  worth  from  coming  in,  and  under  which  they  must 
promote  him  for  merit,  and  coiild  turn  him  out  only  for  cause, 
to  be  publicly  stated  ? 

The  old  argument,  that  parties  could  not  prosper  without  at 
least  as  much  patronage  as  they  then  enjoyed,  was  renewed. 
But,  as  it  had  been  made  by  the  party  managers  and  overruled 
by  the  English  people,  at  every  stage  of  the  progress  of  re- 
form, and  parties  had  continued  to  prosper  all  the  more,  it  did 
not  seem  to  have  so  much  weight  in  England  as  it  has  with 
us  ;  for  the  present  generation  of  Americans  has  seen  partisan 
patronage  and  coercion  steadily  increase,  whereas  the  present 
generation  of  Englishmen  has  seen  them  as  steadily  fall  away. 

Another  objection,  which  has  been  also  urged  with  us,  was 
that  a  general  examining  board  would  be  too  expensive,  and 
that  its  duties  would  be  found  impracticable  in  their  discharge. 
To  which  it  was  replied  that  experience^ would  be  the  best 
answer  ;  though  there  had  been  enough  already  to  make  it 
probable  that  the  objections  were  without  weight ;  that  the 
intrigues,  the  consumption  of  the  time  of  officers  by  rival  ap- 
plicants for  office,  the  interruptions  of  public  business  by 
members  of  Parliament  soliciting  places,  and  the  excessive 
numbers  and  salaries  foisted  upon  the  treasury,  whidi  were 
the  inevitable  results  of  the  old  system,  were  ten  times  more 
costly  than  any  examining  board  could  be.  Still  another  ob- 
jection, lately  made  familiar  to  us,  was  that  the  examining 
board  would  itself  succeed  to  the  patronage  which  its  old  pos- 
sessors would  lose,  and  thereby  a  sort  of  Patronage  Star 
Chamher  would  be  created  ;  in  answer  to  which  it  was  ex- 
plained that  the  board  would  not  have  the  least  authority  over 
or  participation  in  appointments,  its  duty  being  confined  to 
making  up  a  record  from  data,  always  open  to  inspection  and 
review,  and  uj^on  the  face  of  which  any  unfairness  would  at 
all  times  be  patent. 

But  the  attack  upon  the  new  system  most  confidently  urged 
was  this  :  that,  while  an  examination  might  test  mere  mem- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   fifefA^JW  ^*SH;NGTO(^i|)l», 

ory,  brightness  and  quickness  of  parts,  it  could  not  test  moral 
character,  soundness  of  discretion,  executive  ability,  or 
capacity  to  command.  This  was  the  consideration  wliich 
caused  not  a  few  good  citizens  to  hesitate,  and  which  partisans 
urged  with  much  force  and  effect.  It  could  be  urged  in  much 
fewer  words  than  it  could  be  answered,  and  it  looked  plausible 
at  the  fii*st  statement.  Xo  nation  had  then  tried  examinations 
on  a  large  scale.  Still,  there  had  been  considerable  miscel- 
laneous experience  in  England,  and  some  in  France,  and  that 
was  fully  set  forth.  The  argument  from  experience,  to  which 
I  shall  call  attention,  is  now,  at  the  end  of  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century  of  actual  trial,  so  full  and  decisive  that  it  will  hardly 
be  useful  to  refer  to  what  then  existed  or  to  dwell  upon  theory 
or  probability.  It  was  pointed  out  that  a  public  coinpetition  is 
almost  sure  to  expose  and  exclude  bad  characters.  Examina- 
tions were  not  to  be  merely  literary,  but  were  to  cover  the 
practical  duties  of  officers.  They  were  not  claimed  to  be 
infalhble  ;  but  it  was  believed  that  a  public  competition,  be- 
tween attainments  and  capacity,  for  such  duties  was  far  prefer- 
able to  a  private  competition  of  influence,  solicitation,  favor, 
and  coercion,  which  generally  prevailed  under  the  old  system. 
Besides,  the  six-month  probation  would  further  test  executive 
ability. 

The  reform  was  distinctly  presented  to  the  people  as  one  in 
the  interest  of  popular  education,  and  of  the  common,  equal 
rights  of  the  people  of  every  class  and  condition  to  share  in  i 
the  public  service  ;  and  it  was  as  distinctly  opposed,  because 
it  was  regarded  as  hostile  to  privilege  and  favorable  to  repub- 
lican or  democratic  ideas.  "  A  public  opinion  favorable  to 
the  elementary  schools  would  spring  up  in  the  humbler  classes 
of  society,  from  this  public  recognition  and  sanction  of  it,  as 
the  means  of  qualifying  men  for  responsible  stations  in  life. 
.  .  .  In  the  first  place,  we  may  expect  to  see  it  oj^enite 
widely  and  deeply  In  the  education  of  the  coimtry.  Parents, 
even  down  to  those  of  the  lowest  class,  will  be  more  solicitous 
than  they  are  to  secure  the  benefits  of  instruction  for  their 
children,  when  they  see  its  direct  bearing  upon  their  prospects 
of  advancement  in  life."  ' 

'  Civil  Service  Pappr.a,  pp.  24,  41,  and  42. 


202  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIX. 

To  this  language  of  its  friends  its  enemies  replied  in  this 
strain  : 

"  I  am  free  to  confess  that  I  can  see  no  reason  why  the  Crown 
should  be  deprivcJl  of  the  grace  and  influence  which  belongs  to  the 
nominations.  .  .  .  One  obvious  effect  of  the  competition  which 
is  proposed  by  you  would  be  to  fill  the  offices  with  the  picked,  clever, 
young  men  of  the  lower  ranks  of  society,  to  whom  such  offices  would 
be  a  great  object  of  ambition,  which  they  would  not  in  general  be  to 
men  of  the  higher  ranks. ' '  ^ 

And  yet,  it  would  not  be  just  to  say  that  the  aristocracy  were 
all  on  one  side  and  the  common  people  (as  they  are  called) 
all  on  the  other.  To  the  credit  of  English  statesmen  of  the 
most  aristocratic  birth  and  associations,  it  should  be  said  that 
several  of  them  have  set  examples  of  the  surrender  of  pat- 
ronage and  of  the  support  of  measures  clearly  in  the  interest 
of  common  lustice  and  humble  life,  which  it  would  be  an 
honor  to  high  officers  in  a  republic  to  imitate.  Lord  Derby, 
Lord  Kussell,  and  Lord  Palmerston,  for  example,  supported 
the  reform,  as  prime  ministers,  at  the  head  of  their  respective 
parties,  though  assured  by  their  subordinates  (and  I  think  by 
their  own  experience  compelled  to  believe)  that  the  inevitable 
consequence  would  be  an  advance  of  the  influence  and  educa- 
tion of  the  people  at  large,  by  reason  of  which  the  privileged 
classes  would  suffer  a  loss  of  power  in  public  affairs.  The  line 
between  those  who  supported  and  those  who  opposed  the  re- 
form was  not  a  party  line,  nor  was  it  the  boundary  between 
the  privileged  and  the  unprivileged  classes  ;  but  it  was  a  strata 
in  the  moral  tone  of  all  parties  and  all  ranks,  below  which 
were  the  men  whose  faith  was  in  management  and  the  selfish 
forces  of  politics,  and,  above  which,  were  those  who  trusted 
the  higher  sentiments  and  the  nobler  impulses  of  the  people. 
On  the  one  side  was  all  that  survived  in  sympathy  with  Wal- 
pole  and  Newcastle,  on  the  other,  all  that  had  grown  in  the 
spirit  of  Chatham  and  of  Burke. 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  pp.  133  and  330. 


CHAPTEK  XYIII. 

THE   FIRST   OEDER   FOR   A   CIVIL     SERVICE   COMMISSION    AND    COM- 
PEXrriVE    EXAMINATIONS,    MAY,    1855. 

Lord  Palmerston  decides  to  go  to  Parliament  only  for  an  appropriation. — 
Executive  order  appointing  a  Civil  Service  Commission. — Applicants  for 
office  to  be  examined  by  the  commission. — Only  limited  competition  at 
tirst  introduced. — Part  of  their  patronage  retained  by  members  of  Parlia- 
ment.— No  removals  made. — Moderate  changes  thought  most  prudent. — 
Vote  of  Commons  in  1855  adverse  to  new  system. — The  administration 
stands  firm,  and  relies  on  the  people. 

About  the  time  that  English  pubhc  opinion  had  pronounced 
its  first  judgment  upon  the  oflicial  report,  and  before  any  final 
action  liad  been  taken  upon  it,  the  Aberdeen  administration 
went  out.  The  cause — the  disastrous  management  of  the 
Crimean  war — was  independent  of  the  new  system,  except  in  so 
far  as  the  lack  of  official  capacity,  both  in  the  military  and 
civil  administration,  for  which  the  old  system  was  responsible, 
contributed  to  that  result.  Lord  Palmerston  came  into 
power  early  in  1855,  than  whom,  this  most  practical  of  nations 
never  produced  a  more  hard-headed,  practical  statesman,  nor 
one  who  had  a  poorer  opinion  of  mere  theorists,  sentimental- 
ists, and  doctrinaires.  Upon  his  administration  fell  the  duty 
of  deciding  the  fate  of  the  new  system  advocated  in  the  report. 

Fortunately,  he  was  no  more  inclined  to  shirk  a  plain  duty 
than  he  was  to  follow  an  empty  theory.  He  had  had  long 
experience  in  administration,  and  knew  intimately  the  hope- 
less incompetency  of  the  partisan  system.  He  too  held  that 
the  executive  should  discharge  its  own  duty  before  going  to 
Parliament.  He  had  faith  in  his  party,  and  believed  it  would 
gain  more  by  removing  grave  abuses  than  by  any  partisan  use 
of  patronage.  It  was  beyond  question,  however,  that  a 
majority  of  those  most  active  in  either  party,  and  probably  a 


204:  CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

majority  of  members  of  Parliament,  were  opposed  to  the  re- 
form. But  lie  knew  its  strength  with  the  people.  Making 
no  direct  appeal  to  Parliament,  and  trusting  to  the  higher 
public  opinion,  Lord  Palmerston's  administration  advised  that 
an  order  should  be  made  by  the  Queen  in  Council  for  carrying 
the  reform  into  effect  ;  and  such  an  order  was  made  on  the 
21st  of  May,  1855. 

It  recites  that  "it  is  expedient  to  make  provision  for  test- 
ing, according  to  fixed  rules,  the  qualifications  of  the  young 
men  who  may  from  time  to  time  be  proposed  to  be  appointed 
to  the  junior  situations,"  ...  in  the  civil  service.  There 
were  no  women  in  the  service  at  that  time,  and  no  provision 
was  made  for  them.  It  also  appoints  three  General  Commis- 
sioners, Math  power  to  select  assistants,  under  whom  the  ex- 
aminations for  all  the  departments  are  provided  to  be  made. 
It  directs  that  an  estimate  for  their  remuneration  be  laid  before 
Parliament  ;  for  it  was  believed  that  even  members  of  Parlia- 
ment would  not  refuse  to  allow  a  trial  of  the  experiment,  hos- 
tile as  the  majority  was  believed  to  be.  The  order  requires 
that  all  young  men  proposed  to  be  appointed  to  junior  situ- 
ations shall,  before  they  shall  be  admitted  to  probation,  be 
examined  under  the  commissioners  and  receive  a  certificate  of 
qualification  from  them  ;  but  there  is  a  carefully  guarded  excep- 
tion allowing  persons  of  mature  age  to  be  admitted  to  certain 
places  where  special  qualifications  may  be  required.  Appoint- 
ments are  not  to  be  made  until  after  a  six  months-  jjrobation, 
which  probation  must  have  given  satisfactory  evidence  of 
fitness.  There  are  also  proper  directions  for  determining  age, 
good  character,  and  freedom  from  disqualifying  physical 
defects. 

Thus  far  the  order  was  as  broad  as  the  report  ;  but  the  need 
of  going  to  Parliament  for  an  appropriation,  the  doubts  of  so 
many  thoughtful  men  over  so  radical  a  novelty,  the  fierce 
opposition  in  official  and  partisan  circles,  and  the  angry  mood 
of  the  public  mind  over  the""  Crimean  war,  seem  to  have 
caused  the  administration  to  tliink  it  most  prudent  to  modify 
the  recommendation  of  the  report  upon  the  three  following 
points,  until  some  experience  should  be  acquired  :  (1)  the  rules 
were  to  be  accommodated  in  each  department  to  the  views  of 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITALN".  205 

its  head  ;  (2)  the  power  of  nominating  and  appointing,  as  then 
existing  (but  subject  to  examinations),  was  not  to  be  taken 
away  by  the  rules  ;  (3)  the  examinations  were  not  expressly 
required  to  be  competitive  ;  but  it  seems  to  have  been  under- 
stood they  would  be  competitive,  and  in  fact  competitive  ex- 
aminations were  held  by  the  Board  of  Commissioners  from  the 
beginning  of  its  duties. 

This  first  order,  therefore,  did  not  really  provide  for  uni- 
form rules  throughout  the  departments,  but  we  shall  find  it 
hurried  on  and  really  produced  that  result.  It  did  not  in  tenns 
take  away  Parliamentary  and  official  patronage,  but,  by  sub- 
mitting its  favorites  to  competitive  examination,  under  one 
central  board,  it  gave  patronage  its  death-blow.  It  was  really 
limited  and  not  open  competition  that  was  at  first  introduced, 
and  mainly  a  competition,  perhaps,  between  those  of  the  same 
party.  It  was  much  as  if  all  the  nominations  made  by  mem- 
bers of  Congress  for  West  Point,  or  for  civil  oflices,  were  sub- 
jected to  competition,  and  only  a  fit  number  of  those  marked 
highest,  regardless  of  residence,  were  allowed  to  enter  or  have 
places.  No  one,  I  presume,  will  doubt  that  such  a  competi- 
tion would  greatly  raise  the  average  capacity  and  character  of 
the  students  and  clerks.  The  English  service  was  therefore 
not  really  opened  to  the  people,  or  made  free  to  merit,  but 
the  old  monopoly  of  ofiice-holdei's  and  membere  of  Parliament 
was  made  more  odious  by  being  made  more  conspicuous.  As 
competition  and  the  other  tests  would  head  off  favorite  dunces 
and  rascals,  the  holders  of  patronage  at  once  began  to  regard 
their  perquisites  as  of  much  less  importance.  It  was  therefore 
a  substantial  triumph  for  the  new  system,  which  was  very  soon 
put  in  practice.  If  members  of  Parliament  still  nominally  sat 
in  authority  at  the  gates  of  the  public  service,  it  was  onl}^  to 
make  their  selfishness  more  conspicuous,  by  showing  them- 
selves ready  to  contend  for  the  shadow  of  a  monopoly,  after 
its  substance  had  been  lost, — to  maintain  the  forms  of  usurpa- 
tion, after  the  fruits  had  been  wrested  from  their  hands. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  effects  of  the  new  system,  it  will 

be  useful  to  consider  for  a  moment  its  theory  and  scope.     The 

aim  of  the  practical  statesmen  who  promoted  it  was  to  take 

the  whole  body  of  the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain  out  of 

14 


206  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

official  favoritism  and  partisan  control,  and  to  raise  official,  life 
to  a  higher  plane.  They  knew  there  were  many  officers  in 
the  service,  for  a  long  time  trained  under  the  old  system,  who 
were  opposed  to  the  new,  and  who  Avould  not  fail  to  disparage 
and  obstruct  it.  But  they  left  every  such  case  to  be  treated 
upon  its  own  merits,  irrespective  of  the  changes  adopted. 
'No  removals  were  made,  by  reason  of  the  introduction  of  the 
new  system.  The  members  of  Lord  Palmerston's  cabinet  and 
the  unofficial  friends  of  reform  foresaw  that  the  change  they 
proposed  would  be  only  slowly  brought  about  by  the  new 
method  they  established.  Their  long  experience  had  convinced 
them  that  all  expectations  of  suddenly  changing  the  character 
and  tone  of  the  sixty  or  more  thousand  persons  who  make 
up  the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain — a  character  and  tone 
which  were  the  growth  of  generations — are  utterly  chimerical. 
They  felt  that  even  the  attempt,  to  accomplish  at  one  sweep 
the  full  reform  that  was  desired,  would  recoil  upon  them  with 
disastrous  effect.  Their  reliance  was  upon  the  introduction 
of  superior  elements  into  the  service — and  almost  wholly  into 
its^  lower^grade — from  which  promotions  would  be  made  on 
the  basis  of  merit  ;  and  thus,  in  a  few  years,  higher  character 
and  a  better  spirit  would  permeate  and  in  no  long  time  would 
control  the  entire  service.  Neither  the  ministry  nor  the  Eng- 
lish people  fell  into  the  error  of  regarding  that  reform  as 
trifling  which,  though  not  at  once  very  much  affecting  the 
higher  offices,  really  controlled  the  doors  of  patronage  and 
favoritism,  and  determined  who,  a  few  years  hence,  would  fill 
nearly  every  high  office  except  that  of  cabinet  ministers. 
They  seem  to  have  comprehended  that  the  adoption,  even  in 
a  hmited  sphere,  of  a  principle  by  which  partisan  tyranny  was 
condemned,  was  in  itself  no  inconsiderable  victory,  which 
would  not  fail  to  lead  on  to  far  greater  triumishs  in  the  same 
direction.  I  have  found  nothing  in  the  progress  of  this  re- 
form which  has  seemed  to  me  a  better  evidence  of  a  sound 
pubhc  opinion  on  the  subject  than  this  popular  judgment. 
"Wise  methods  steadily  and  faithfully  applied,  which  educate 
public  opinion  at  the  same  time  that  they  close  the  fountains 
of  mischief,  and  not  sweeping,  revolutionary  proceedings, 
which  assume  that  the  moral  tone  of  a  nation's  politics  can  be 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  207 

changed  by  an  assault  or  an  exhortation,  were,  in  tlie  opinion 
of  the  British  public,  the  essential  conditions  of  all  adminis- 
trative  reform. 

The  evidence  is  decisive  that  the  reform  would  have  been 
defeated  had  the  original  plan  of  going  to  Parliament  in  the 
first  instance  been  adhered  to.  For,  after  it  had  been  strength- 
ened by  all  the  power  of  the  administration,  it  failed  of  a 
majority  when  first  brought  before  that  body.  Members  saw 
that  it  was  in  principle  fatal  to  patronage.  The  order  in  Coun- 
cil of  May,  1855,  came  before  Parliament  in  July  of  that  year, 
and  it  was  approved  by  only  125  votes  to  140  which  condemned 
it.  It  will  be  notied  tliat  a  very  large  majority  of  members  did 
not  vote.  How  many  of  those  who  dodged  the  issue  really 
detested  the  mean  work  which  patronage  imposed  upon  them, 
yet  wanted  the  courage  to  vote,  1  have  no  means  of  knowing. 
The  administration  neither  informed  Parliament  beforehand 
that  it  would  surrender  to  an  adverse  vote,  nor  abandoned  its 
duty  or  its  pledges  when  that  vote  was  announced.  The 
struggle  had  been  recognized  as  one  in  which  the  people,  con- 
tending for  common  rights  and  pure  government,  were  on  one 
side,  and  selfish  ofiicials,  endeavoring  to  maintain  a  connipt 
monopoly  of  patronage,  and  all  the  partisan  manipulators  were 
on  the  other  side.  The  ministers  had  set  an  example  of  sub- 
mitting their  patronage  to  the  test  of  competition,  and  that  ex- 
ample members  of  Parliament  had  refused  to  follow.  It  was  for 
the  people  to  decide  between  them.  To  the  people  therefore 
the  appeal  was  made,  whether  they  would  approve  the  selfish- 
ness and  the  monopoly  of  their  representatives  or  the  patriot- 
ism and  disinterestedness  of  the  administration. 


CHAPTEE  XIX. 

THE   FIRST   FIVE   YEARS   UNDER   THE   NEW   SYSTEM. 

The  system  gains  strength. — Subjects  as  to  which  examinations  were  made. 
— Many  incompetent  persons  applied. — Examinations  extended  to  Ireland 
and  Scotland. — Competition  shown  to  be  practicable  and  popular. — Better 
men  secured  than  by  pass  examinations. — The  Commons,  in  1850,  change 
their  vote,  and  approve  the  commission  and  open  competition. — In  1857, 
the  House,  by  vote,  calls  for  an  extension  of  competition. — It  is  steadily 
extended  from  office  to  office. — Examinations  favorable  to  practical  capac- 
ity and  to  the  public  schools. — In  1859,  Parliament  refuses  the  benefit  of 
the  superannuation  allowances  to  those  not  examined  before  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice Conamission. 

The  members  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  promptly 
entered  upon  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  The  administra- 
tion was  faithful  to  the  spirit  of  the  order  in  Council,  and  ex- 
hibited the  self-denial  and  firmness  which  were  essential  to 
success  in  the  great  work.  The  commissioners'  first  report 
was  made,  March  4:th,  1856,  covering  only  a  period  of  about 
nine  months.  Though  not  expressly  required  by  the  order,  a 
great  portion  of  the  examinations  were  competitive  from  the 
outset.  The  first  examination  was  held  in  June,  1855. 
Thirteen  competitive  examinations  are  mentioned  in  the  first 
report.  This  able  document — broadly  circulated — very  much 
strengthened  that  favoring  public  opinion  which  the  frequent 
discussions  of  the  action  of  the  commission  in  the  public  press 
had  tended  to  develop.  The  j)rincipal  subjects  of  examination 
were  writing,  arithmetic,  geography,  composition,  history, 
and  book-keeping  ;  but  some  of  the  examinations  included  one 
or  more  languages  ;  to  which  were  added  such  practical  sub- 
jects as  the  clerk  most  needed  to  understand  in  entering  a  par- 
ticular office.  A  just  system  of  marking  and  grading  was 
adopted,  according  to  which  the  relative  standing  of  those  ex- 
amined, as  between  themselves,  was  so  made  up  that  both  the 


CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT   BRITAIN.  209 

degree  of  excellence  in  each  subject  and  the  relative  practical  i 
importance  of  that  subject,  were  embraced  as  factors.  Tliose  i 
who  stood  the  highest  in  qualifications  got  the  appointments. 
It  has  struck  me  that  the  standard  for  admission  was  at  first 
fixed  needlessly  high,  probably  on  some  grounds  of  expediency 
having  reference  to  English  opinion  at  that  time  ;  and  it  is 
very  certain  that  it  would  exclude  not  a  few  of  those  who 
enter  our  service.  But  it  gave  high  capacity  and  character  to 
English  official  life  ;  and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  lower  the 
standard  to  any  extent  desirable.  Indeed,  it  has  been  some-  f 
what  lowered  in  later  yeai*s.  In  the  outset  the  old  aristocratic 
element  was  powerful,  and  it  could  not  be  wholly  disregarded. 
The  commission  seems  to  have  discharged  its  duties  with 
ability  and  firmness.  The  rules  were  extended  to  only  a  por- 
tion of  the  offices  at  the  beginning.  But  in  the  few  months 
covered  by  the  first  report,  1078  persons  were  examined,  of 
whom  almost  one  third — that  is,  309 — were  regarded  as  not 
competent.  The  309  would  seem  to  have  been  tlie  class  of 
blockheads  and  incompetents  —  of  partisan  henchmen  and 
superannuated  butlers — of  which  the  report  of  1853  had  given 
an  account  as  swarming  in  the  service.  Of  course,  not  a  few 
members  of  Parliament  had  such  favorites  tllro^vn  back  upon 
their  hands  and  were  angry.  But  the  people  were  glad  to  see 
them  spumed  from  the  public  service,  and  praised  the  com- 
mission. Great  pressure  was  brought  upon  the  board,  by  mem- 
bers and  high  officers,  to  allow  favorite  dunces  to  pass,  but  in 
vain.  An  important  incident  tested  the  character  of  the 
board  the  first  year.  Lord  Palmei-ston,  the  Prime  Minister, 
had  the  mortification  of  being  infonned  that  one  of  his  own 
nominees  had  failed  in  the  examination.  lie  sent  to  the 
board  for  the  papers,  which  would  show  why  his  favorite  had 
been  rejected  ;  and  he  was  probably  never  more  astonished  than 
when  told  they  could  not  be  sent  from  the  office,  but  were 
open  to  his  inspection  there,  as  they  were  to  the  inspection  of 
all  other  persons.  He  graciously  yielded  to  his  own  system, 
and  allowed  the  papers  to  remain  and  his  nominee  to  go  about 
other  business.  This  event  was  a  sort  of  proclamation  that 
personal  fitness  would  avail  more  for  getting  into  the  public 
service  than  all  the  power  of  a  Prime  Minister.     This  first 


210  CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

report  declared  that  the  duties  of  the  board  were  in  their 
nature  judicial,  and  that  a  recognition  of  its  independence 
was  essential  to  justice.  And  I  may  add  that,  from  that 
day  to  this,  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  created  in  1855, 
has  gone  on  in  the  discharge  of  its  ever  increasing  duties, 
with  a  justice  that  has  hardly  been  challenged,  and  with  a 
good  faith  that  has  never  been  questioned.  The  order  con- 
templated that  examinations  should  be  extended  from  office 
to  office,  and  even  be^^ond  London,  as  experience  and  con- 
venience might  suggest.  The  first  report  shows  examinations 
held  in  Ireland  and  in  Scotland  ;  and  that  Lord  Clarendon,  the 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  ASairs,  had  required  that,  both 
his  clerks  and  all  persons  entering  the  diplomatic  service  as 
attaches  or  consuls,  should  be  examined  by  the  commission. 
Perhaps  the  most  striking  illustration  of  the  extent  to  which 
these  examinations,  from  the  beginning,  arrested  incompe- 
tency, is  found  in  the  fact  that,  at  a  single  examination,  held 
in  November,  1855,  for  clerkships  in  the  Council  for  Educa- 
tion, and  confined  to  ' '  subjects  deemed  of  indispensahle  neces- 
sity^'''' 21  of  the  31  candidates  examined  were  rejected  as  dis- 
qualified. 

If  the  people  did  not,  in  those  first  examinations,  find  all 
their  sons  at  hberty,  without  official  endorsement,  to  compete 
for  a  place  in  the  public  service,  they  did,  for  the  first  time, 
see  such  of  them  as  members  and  ministers  might  choose  to 
favor,  compelled  to  submit  to  manly  competitions  between 
themselves,  in  which  those  of  the  best  character  and  the  highest 
capacity  won  the  prizes.  They  did,  from  the  first,  see  the  na- 
tion thus  openly  declare  its  preference  for  young  men  of  merit 
rather  than  for  beggars  for  places  and  sycophants  in  politics  ; 
they  did  see  education  honored  and  its  victory,  in  honorable 
competition,  send  official  favorites  and  fawners  to  the  wall. 
This  was  a  great  advance  in  the  right  direction  ;  and  neither 
the  people  nor  the  monopolists  failed  to  see  that  the  success  of 
this  limited  form  of  contest  would  inevitably  bring  in  free, 
open,  competition  at  no  distant  day. 

The  first  experience  of  competitive  examinations  dissipated 
the  old  objections  that  it  would  be  found  impracticable  to  con- 
duct them,  and  that  they  would  fail  to  arrest  bright  rascals. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IS  GREAT   BRITAIN.  211 

In  such  an  open  contest,  it  was  found  that  the  pubHc  and  the 
competitors  alike  took  notice  of  the  character  and  history  as 
well  as  of  the  capacity  of  those  competing.  Young  men  of 
tarnished  reputations  dared  not  present  themselves  for  a  public 
ordeal  of  that  kind,  in  which  every  one  engaged  searched  the 
record  of  those  who  contended  against  him. 

Even  ridicule  was  soon  turned  against  those  who  had  laughed 
and  sneered  at  examinations.  The  ten  who  had  won  the 
prizes,  in  the  case  last  referred  to,  were  cheered  by  the  people 
and  praised  by  the  press,  while  the  twenty-one  incompetents 
were  ridiculed,  and  with  them  the  patronage  system  they  rep- 
resented ;  for  it  thus  appeared  that  the  system  would,  but  for 
the  examinations,  have  foisted  two  imbeciles  upon  the  service 
for  each  competent  person  it  produced.  It  was  declared  that 
if  competition  was  made  free  to  all,  far  better  men  would  offer 
themselves,  who  would  be  greatly  superior  to  the  favorites 
recommended  by  members  of  Parliament.  These  favorites, 
like  some  of  our  students  recommended  to  West  Point,  were 
not  seldom  found  to  be  poor  material  for  pubUc  officers  ;  and 
their  competition  was  compared  to  a  Derby  horse-race  at  which 
none  but  "sprained  and  sickly  colts,  ringboned,  old  racers, 
and  heavy,  wheezy  coach-horses  should  be  allowed  to  run." 
The  reformers  had  their  time  to  laugh  when  highly-recom- 
mended noodles  walked  out  crestfallen  from  the  examinations. 
The  effects  upon  the  public  mind  of  these  examinations,  and 
of  the  discussions  they  called  forth,  were  at  once  considerable. 
It  was  seen  that  patronage  and  favoritism  were  the  losers  by 
competition,  and  that  what  they  lost  was  gained  by  good  char- 
acter and  capacity.  Still,  pass  examinations,  by  the  commis- 
sioners, were  not  wholly  discontinued  ;  but  they  were  far  more 
efficient  than  pass  examinations  by  mere  department  boards. 
Members  of  Parliament  soon  appreciated  the  change  which  had 
thus  come  over  public  opinion,  and  comprehended  that  their  old 
monopoly  was  no  longer  defensible.  On  the  24th  of  April, 
1856,  Parliament  resolved,  by  a  vote  of  108  to  87  (from  which 
it  would  appear  that  dodgers  were  still  very  numerous),  that 
"  the  House  has  observed,  with  great  satisfaction,  the  zeal  and 
prudence  with  which  the  Commission  has  proceeded  in  apply- 
ing a  remedy  to  evils  of  a  serious  character,  the  previous  ex- 


S12  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN, 

istence  of  which  has  now  heen  placed  heyond  dispute  y '  and 
also  the  degree  of  progress  that  has  been  made,  with  the  sanc- 
tion of  various  departments  of  the  State,  toward  the  estabhsh- 
ment  of  a  system  of  competition  among  the  candidates  for  ad- 
mission to  the  civil  service,  .  .  .  and  makes  known  to 
her  Majesty  that,  if  she  shall  think  fit  further  to  extend  them 
and  to  make  trial  in  the  service  of  the  method  of  open  compe- 
tition as  a  condition  of  entrance,  this  House  will  cheerfully 
provide  for  any  charges  which  the  adoption  of  that  system 
may  entail, ' ' 

This  certainly  was  a  great  victory  for  the  new  system  ;  and 
it  was  won  by  the  executive  and  the  people,  A  right  of  nom- 
ination had  become  of  little  value  as  a  j)erquisite,  the  moment 
that  even  limited  competition  was  placed  between  the  favorites 
and  the  offices.  Recommendation  no  longer  gave  an  office, 
but  only  a  chance  to  compete  for  one.  The  great  majority 
that  failed  to  vote,  however,  sliows  that  not  all  the  defeated 
monopolists  were  wilHng  to  meet  their  fate  in  a  patriotic  and 
manly  spirit.  Still,  the  British  Parliament,  as  a  whole,  must 
be  given  the  credit  of  having  promptly  accepted  the  public 
judgment,  and  of  having  tendered  the  executive  its  promise 
to  sustain  a  trial  of  open  competition,  which,  if  successful, 
would  take  from  eacli  member — from  all  officials  of  the  empire 
— from  party  managers — every  particle  of  that  coveted  patron- 
age which  had  belonged  to  them  and  their  predecessors  for  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  This  is  the  highest  elevation  of  self- 
denial  and  patriotic  statesmanship  that  legislative  action  on 
the  subject,  in  any  country,  has  ever  reached.  And  it  can 
never  flatter  our  pride  to  compare  this  record  with  that  of  our 
Congress,  when,  without  a  debate  or  a  division,  it  refused  to 
vote  a  dollar  to  carry  on  a  similar  reform  to  which  an  American 
Executive  and  a  great  party  were  equally  committed.  Thus, 
within  three  years  from  the  time  the  inerit  system,  was  pre- 

'  The  evidence  -which  had  "  placed  sucli  evils  beyond  dispute  "  was  the 
exposure  and  rejection,  on  the  examinations,  of  incompetent  nominees  which 
before  had  been  pushed  into  the  service.  Tlie  public  had  begun  to  take 
notice  of  abuses  which  before  had  escaped  censure,  and  members  of  Par- 
liament could  no  longer  deny  an  evil  they  had  before  considered  it  infidelity 
to  the  party  and  scandalous  to  even  suggest. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  213 

sented,  in  an  official  report,  wliicli  was,  at  first,  received  by 
hostile  parties  and  an  indignant  Parliament,  it  liad  won  both 
the  people  and  the  legislature. 

I  must  pass  rapidly  over  the  next  four  years,  in  which  the 
reform  rapidly  gained  strength  ;  so  rapidly  indeed  that,  in 
1S57,  the  House  resolved,  unanimously,  "  that  the  experience 
gained  since  the  issuing  of  the  order  in  Council  of  May  2l8t, 
1855,  is  in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  the  principle  of  competi- 
tion as  a  condition  of  entrance  to  the  civil  service,  and  that  the 
application  of  that  principle  ought  to  be  extended,  in  conform- 
ity with  the  resolution  of  the  House  agreed  to  on  the  24th  of 
April,  1856." 

The  facts  were  that  members  of  Parliament  and  officials  gen- 
erally experienced  a  great  relief  in  being  even  partially  pro- 
tected from  solicitation.  Troublesome  office-seekers  could  be 
sent  to  competition,  where  the  poorer  sort  were  sure  to  be  laid 
out.  When  legislation  and  party  action  began  to  turn  on 
principle  and  not  on  patronage,  official  duty  was  found  to  be 
as  much  less  wearisome  as  it  was  more  honorable.  The 
moment  favoritism  ceased  to  be  powerful,  it  became  contempt- 
ible. Each  year,  to  this  time,  the  Civil  Service  Commission  has 
laid  its  methods  and  proceedings  fully  before  the  public  in  an 
annual  report.  The  second  report  showed  that  competition 
had  been  steadily  extended,  and  with  results  equally  satisfac- 
tory. The  number  of  noodles  and  ignoramuses  sent  by  mem- 
bers for  examination  were  less  than  the  first  year  ;  but  some 
appeared  who  declared  Gennany  to  be  on  the  Caspian  Sea,  the 
Isle  of  Wight  to  be  a  part  of  Scotland,  who  had  never  heard 
anything  about  the  Alps,  Mount  Sinai,  Athens,  the  Red  Sea, 
or  the  St.  Lawrence  ;  nor  could  some  of  them  tell  where  tea, 
tobacco,  or  cotton  came  from.  Such  examples  of  ignorance  of 
course  more  and  more  turned  the  laugh  upon  the  opponents  of 
the  new  system.  From  the  report  of  1857,  it  appears  tliat  509 
persons  had  been  examined  as  letter-carriers  before  1850  ;  a 
method  which  Postmaster  James  of  Xew  York  city  lias  lately 
found  greatly  conducive  to  the  rare  efficiency  of  his  administra- 
tion. During  the  year,  31:  competitive  examinations  were  held.  ^2^,,^^ 
Of  all  those  examined  over  38  per  cent  were  rejected,  and  1906  ^ 
certificates  of  competency-  were  granted.      The  third  report     . 


214:  CIVIL   SERVICE    IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

shows  that  the  Directors  of  the  East  India  Company  had  applied 
to  the  commission  to  examine  the  clerks  for  the  home  service 
of  that  company,  and  I  shall  soon  have  occasion  to  show  how 
the  system  liad  been  extended  to  its  foreign  service.  The  cor- 
poration of  London,  in  the  same  year,  took  measures  in  the 
same  direction.  Examinations  were  about  the  same  time  insti- 
tuted in  Malta  and  were  provided  for  in  Canada.  This  report 
shows  that  5682  j)erson8  in  all  liad  been  exainined.  The  ratio 
of  rejections  had  fallen  to  about  28  per  cent,  apparently  for 
the  reason  that  dunces  had  come  to  understand  that  it  was  of 
no  use  to  compete.  The  post  office  authorities,  which  had 
always  been  most  hostile  to  the  new  system,  this  year  notified 
their  assent  to  competition.  In  this  report,  the  general  bearings 
and  results  of  the  competitions,  which  had  turned  in  part  upon 
literary  attainments  and  in  part  upon  practical  capacity,  are 
fully  discussed  ;  and  it  is  shown  that  attainments  and  business 
ability  are  so  closely  allied  in  young  men,  that  on  the  basis  of 
76  competitions^  it  appears  that  out  of  115  candidates  the 
result  would  have  heen  different  as  to  nine  only,  had  the  ex- 
aminations heen  limited  to  subjects  wholly  practical.  The 
stimulating  and  salutary  effects  of  these  public  competitions — 
of  the  spirit  that  brought  them  into  existence — speedily  made 
themselves  felt  in  places  bej^ond  the  public  service,  proper ; 
and  early  produced  striking  results.  For  example,  there  is  a 
central  society — a  sort  of  semi-official  body — ^known  as  the 
Society  of  Arts,  which  has  contributed  largely  to  the  improve- 
ment of  scientific  and  artistic  education.  As  early  as  1856,  I 
find  this  society  conducting  competitive^  examinations,  in  "a 
large  number  of  institutions  of  different  kinds,  .  .  .  people's 
.colleges,  evening  schools,  and  all  sorts  of  bodies."  From  its 
centre  in  London,  the  examinations  of  the  Society,  in  1858, 
had  extended  to  36  places,  and  in  1859  to  63  places,  in  Eng- 
land, Ireland,  and  Scotland,  everywhere  suj)erseding  favorit- 
ism and  solicitation,  and  giving  new  vigor  to  that  growth  of 

'  As  illustrating  the  liberal  spirit  in  which  British  noblemen  have  dealt 
with  patronage  (to  which  I  have  already  referred),  I  may  mention  that 
Lord  Granville  declined  the  patronage  of  these  appointments  belonging  to 
his  office,  and  gave  them  to  competition  "  to  make  them  available  for  the 
purpose  of  encouraging  education."  Report  of  18C0  on  Civil  Service  Ap- 
pointments, p.  286.    May  we  hope  that  Republican  officers  will  do  as  much  ? 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  215 

education  of    every  kind  which  has  been  so  remarkable  in 
Great  Britain  during  the  last  twenty  years.' 

The  report  for  1858  further  illustrates  the  fact  that  the  ex- 
aminations gave  results  far  more  favorable  to  the  common 
people  (to  use  an  English  phrase)  and  to  the  public  schools  than 
to  the  aristocracy  or  to  higher  scholarship,  and  that  the  want 
of  practical  knowledge,  and  not  the  want  of  mere  book  learn- 
ing, determined  the  rejections  ;  though  of  course  whatever 
stimulated  learning  in  its  lower  planes  strengthened  it  in  all  its 
higher  grades.  For  example,  certificates  were  granted  to  958 
of  the  persons  nominated  ;  and  in  292  cases  they  were  re- 
fused. Kow,  of  these  292  rejections,  286  were  made  by  rea- 
son of  incapacity  in  such  elementary  subjects  as  arithmetic  and 
spelling,  and  only  six  for  incompetency  in  higher  attainments. 
A  careful  inquiry  into  the  education  and  the  occupation  of 
the  parents  of  391  of  those  who  passed  by  competition,  showed 
that  but  12  were  sons  of  lawyers,  that  but  27  were  sons  of  gentle- 
men, and  that  but  22  were  sons  of  ministers  of  the  EstabHshed 
Church  ;  while  29  were  sons  of  public  officers,  14  were  sons  of 
private  clerks,  and  1T4  were  sons  of  tradesmen,  artificer, 
farmers,  and  manufacturers.  Of  the  391,  only  eight  loere 
college  graduates,  while  335  were  educated  in  the  different 
grades  of  British  schools.  Here  we  have  the  j>redictions,  made 
by  the  friends  of  the  new  system,  that  it  would  promote 
school  education,  fully  verified.  Such  facts  show  us  why  this 
refonn  has  commended  itself  so  much  more  to  the  great  body 
of  the  worthy  English  people,  not  high  in  the  social  scale,  than 
it  has  to  the  aristocracy,  and  why  it  has  so  greatly  advanced 
popular  education.  In  1859,  the  new  system  came  again  be- 
fore Parliament,  in  connection  with  a  revision  of^the  superan- 
nuation acts  ;  and  so  firmly  had  it  and  tJie  Civil  Service  Com- 
imssion  been  established  in  public  favor,  that  it  was  enacted 
(22  Victoria,  cli.  26)  that  (with  some  slight  exceptions)  "  no 
person  appointed  after  its  date  shall,  for  its  purposes,  be  con- 
sidered as  serving  in  the  permanent  civil  service  of  the  State 
unless  admitted  with  a  certificate  from  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioners ;"  and,  without  being  in  that  service,  no  one  could 
share  in  the  superannuation  allowances. 

'  Report  of  1860  on  Civil  Service  Appointments,  p.  2S3. 


CHAPTEE  XX. 

PARLIAMENT AEY   INVESTIGATION   OF   THE    NEW    SYSTEM    IN    1860. 

Able  men  on  tlie  committee. — Lord  Derby  and  John  Bright  among  them. — 
Over  4500  questions  answered. — "Numbers  in  the  British  service. — Heads  of 
departments. — Causes  of  rejections  stated. — Appointments  in  the  Postal 
Service. — Some  officers  hostile. — Aims  of  the  committee. — Approve  the 
Civil  Service  Commission. — Advise  a  steady  advance  towards  open  com- 
petition.— Pass  examinations  sliould  be  discontinued. — Preliminary  exam- 
ination to  weed  out  inferior  persons  nominated. 

At  tliis  date,  the  new  system  liad  been  on  trial  onlj  five 
years.  It  slionld  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  greater  part  of 
those  competitions  had  been  Hmited — that  is,  confined  to  per- 
sons selected  by  members  of  Parliament  and  other  officers. 
Though  Parliament  had,  as  we  have  seen,  expressed  its  readi- 
ness to  make  a]5propriations  for  the  trial  of  open  competition, 
the  government  had,  with  that  caution  which  has  marked  the 
whole  progress  of  administrative  reform,  preferred  to  have 
fuller  evidence  of  the  effects  of  what  they  had  already  done. 
Some  had  complained  that  the  standard  of  admission  was  too 
high,  some  that  it  was  too  low.  Conservatives  had  expressed 
fears  that  the  new  system  endangered  the  constitution  ;  and 
partisans  had  got  angry  over  the  loss  of  patronage  and  spoils. 
In  1860,  therefore,  a  Parliamentary  committee  of  fifteen  was 
appointed  ' '  to  inquire  into  the  present  mode  of  nominating 
and  examining  candidates  for  junior  appointments  in  the  civil 
service,  with  a  view  of  ascertaining  whether  greater  facility 
may  not  be  afforded  for  the  admission  of  properly  qualified 
persons. ' ' 

It  is  worth  noticing,  as  an  illustration  of  the  high  importance 
which  the  English  Parliament  and  nation  have  long  attached 
to  the  character  of  those  who  enter  even  its  junior  civil  service, 
that  this  inquiry  was  not  treated  as  matter  of  clerical  detail. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  217 

nor  intrusted  to  inferior  members,  but  was  placed  in  charge  of 
some  of  the  foremost  statesmen  of  both  parties  ;  and  the 
thorougli  investigation  made  is  beyond  comparison  with  any 
similar  inqniry  ever  conducted  by  our  Congress.  The  six  fii"st 
names  on  the  committee  are  the  following  : 

Sir  Stafford  N^orthcote  (now  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer). 

John  Bright,    )    ^^^^j^  j^  ^^   Gladstone's  Cabinet.  I 
Kobert  Lowe,  j  ) 

Monckton  Milnes. 

Lord  Stanley  (now  Lord  Derby). 

Mr.  Roebuck. 

Lord  Stanley  was  made  cliairman.  The  interest  felt  in  the 
subject  is  shown  by  the  facts  that  he  did  not  fail  to  preside  at 
a  single  one  of  the  numerous  meetings,  and  that,  though  five 
was  a  quorum,  there  was  not  a  meeting  at  Avhich  less  than 
eight  were  present.  I  call  attention  to  such  details,  not  as 
being  important  in  themselves,  but  to  contrast  them  with  the 
neglect  and  indifference,  with  which,  in  this  country,  a  subject 
vital  to  its  safety  has  generally  been  treated  by  legislators.  It 
would  require  far  more  space  than  I  can  give  to  do  justice  to 
the  elaborate  report  of  this  committee,  presented  in  July, 
1860.  More  than  4500  comprehensive  questions  are  answered. 
There  are  exhaustive  explanations  in  the  appendix  on  special 
points.  Those  in  every  grade  of  the  service,  from  heads  of 
departments  to.  messengers  and  copyists,  were  fully  examined. 

The  action  of  Parliament  that  led  to  the  inquiry,  as  well  as 
the  opening  proceedings  of  the  committee,  showed  that  there 
was  no  thought  of  taking  any  back  steps,  but  only  of  per- 
fecting and  extending  the  new  system,  and  of  removing  col- 
lateral abuses  that  interfered  with  its  good  effects.  The  com- 
mittee give  the  whole  number  officially  employed  in  the  civil 
service  of  Great  Britain  in  1860  (not  however  including 
those  serving  in  the  colonies  or  in  India,  as    I  understand 

it),  as 58,504 

To  those  are  to  b6  added  artisans  and  laborers 29,613 

Persons  not  wholly  employed,  women,  etc 14,041 


D   1 


In  all 103,058 

'  I  think  this  includes  none  of  the  postmasters,  but  tliere  is  an  indefinite 
ness  of  language  on  the  subject.    Report,  1860,  p.  viii.,  and  247  and  C63. 


218  CIVIL   SERVICE   m   GREAT   BRITAIN'. 

There  were,  of  those  designated  as  heads  of  departments,  in 
all  190.  Of  these  190  only  from  thirty -four  to  fifty  are  classed 
as  "  political  " — that  is,  as  being  the  officers  (exclusive  of 
some  of  the  foreign  ministers)  who  go  out  and  come  in  with 
an  administration.  Beyond  those,  a  change  of  administration 
in  England  does  not  change  its  civil  service. ' 

The  committee  say  that,  since  the  creation  of  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice Commission,  and,  before  the  end  of  1859,  there  had  been 
10,860  nominations  to  which  the  order  of  1854  applied  ;  of  which 
2479  had  been  rejected  ;  and  tliat  "it  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  of  these  latter  all  except  106  were  rejected  as  deficient  in 
arithmetic  or  spelling,  a  fact  which  your  committee  thinks 
ought  to  he  home  in  mind  when  complaints  are  made  of  the 
needlessly  high  educational  reguirements  imposed  on  candi- 
dates for  the  civil  service.  .  .  .  The  examiners  emphatic- 
ally deny  that  candidates  have  ever  been  rejected,  as  is  fre- 
quently rumored,  for  failing  to  answer  questions  of  a  recondite 
or  difficult  character.  ...  It  does  not  appear  that  an  ex- 
amination paper  has  ever  come  unfairly  into  the  hands  of  a 
candidate  or  his  tutor.     .     .     . " 

It  would  seem  from  this  report  that  about  500  new  admis- 
sions are  anually  made  into  the  58,504  which  make  uj)  tlie  reg- 
ular official  civil  service  ;  but  these  500  vacancies  are  exclusive 
of  those  in  the  post  office  service.  That  department  remained 
longer  under  political  influence  than  any  other.  Yet  even 
its  average  yearly  appointments,  for  five  years  previous  to 
1859,  was  111  clerks,  14  mail  guards,  and  535  sorters,  letter 
carriers,  and  laborers.  But  in  regard  to  the  lower  grade  of 
postmasters,  it  would  seem  that  there  was  still  a  considerable 
response  to  political  influence  in  making  appointments,  but  there 
were  no  removals  without  cause.    The  average  appointments  for 

Report,  18G0,  pp.  347  and  362. 
It  may  be  stated  as  explaining  tlie  large  number  of  190  heads  of  de- 
partments, that  several  offices  are  called  departments,  that  would  not  be  so 
called  with  us.  The  inland  and  customs  revenue,  for  example,  is  each 
imder  a  separate  department,  each  being  in  charge  of  several  commissioners 
or  heads,  all  in  a  limited  way  subordinate  to  the  Treasury.  So  there  are 
several  Lords  or  Heads  of  the  Admiralty  and  of  the  Treasury.  But  of  these 
heads,  I  repeat,  only  about  34  to  50  are  political,  or  go  out  with  a  change  of 
administration. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN".  219 

five  years  of  postmasters,  sub-postmasters,  and  letter  receivers 
had  been  1264  annually. 

The  report  brings  out,  in  a  striking  way,  the  well-known 
fact  that  heads  of  bureaus  and  officers  who  have  served  under 
the  patronage-favorite  system  are  generally  opposed  to  selec- 
tion or  promotion  according  to  merit.  They  are  also  opposed 
to  competition,  for  it  not  only  takes  away  their  arbitrary 
authority,  but  it  may  bring  in  or  promote  men  brighter  than 
themselves.  Such  officers  had  generally  deprecated  if  not 
openly  opposed  reform  ;  but  the  report  shows  that  a  majority  of 
them  had  outgrown  their  prejudices.  By  some  of  these  officers, 
opposition  was  unquestionably  made  for  disinterested  reasons. 
Mr.  Helps  and  Mr.  TroUope  were  distinguished  for  their  hos- ' 
tility  to  the  new  system,  and  they  stand  almost  alone  among 
men  of  distinction  who  have  conscientiously  opposed  it.  The 
opposition  of  Mr.  Trollope  was  so  conspicuous  that  it  is  re- 
ferred to  in  the  report ;  and,  as  his  peculiar  views  have  been 
frequently  quoted  in  this  country,  I  give  a  question  and  answer 
from  his  examination  before  the  committe,  which  will  show 
the  evil  the  new  system  was  in  his  view  bringing  upon  the 
country  : 

' '  Are  you  of  the  opinion  that  there  is  a  serious  evil  to  he  appre- 
hended in  getting  men  who  are,  too  good  for  their  situation  ?  I  think 
so."i 

*  Mr.  Trollope's  view  seems  to  have  been  that  it  was  possible  to  get  men 
who  were  above  their  business,  an  evil  perhaps  ;  but  he  did  not  say  that  this 
would  be  an  effect  of  the  new  system,  if  found  to  exist  at  all,  which  could 
be  easily  prevented  by  lowering  the  examination.  His  fears,  however, 
have  not  been  realized.  The  views  of  Mr.  Arthur  Helps  have  also  been 
often  quoted  in  this  country.  Mr.  Helps  was  the  secretary  of  the 
Queen's  privy  council  (one  of  the  most  aristocratic  of  the  institutions 
that  survive  from  early  times),  and  Mr.  Helps  and  such  members  of 
Parliament  as  'Sir.  Neate — the  representative,  of  State  Church  doctrines 
and  aristocratic  philosophy,  for  the  University  of  Oxford  —  condemn, 
competitive  examinations  "  as  bringing  a  lower  class  of  society  into  the 
civil  service."  Mr.  Helps,  in  his  "  Thojights  on  Government,"  page  6, 
says,  "  I  rather  partake  of  the  opinion  of  George  III.  (not  altogether  an 
unprejudiced  observer)  that  the  British  Constitution  is  the  best  that  has 
yet  l)een  devised  by  man. "  At  page  82,  we  are  told,  "The  conferring  of 
honors  is  a  most  important  function  of  government ;"  and  at  page  84  we 


220  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Having  disposed  of  the  objections,  the  report,  in  the  lan- 
guage next  quoted,  states  the  ends  sought  bj  the  wide  range  of 
the  investigation  the  committee  had  made  : 

1.  "To  provide,  by  a  proper  system  of  examination,  for 
the  supply  of  the  public  service  with  a  thoroughly  efficient 
class  of  men." 

2.  "  T«9  encourage  industry  and  foster  merit  by  teaching  all 
public  servants  to  looh  forward  to  iwomotion  according  to  their 
deserts,  and  to  expect  the  highest  prizes  in  the  service  if  they 
can  qualify  themselves  for  them." 

3.  "To  mitigate  the  evils  which  result  from  the  fragmen- 
tary character  of  the  service,  and  to  introduce  into  it  some 
elements  of  unity,  by  placing  the  first  appointments  upon  a 
uniform  footing,  opening  the  way  to  the  promotion  of  public 
officers  to  staff  appointments  in  other  departments  than  their 
own,  and  introducing  into  the  lower  ranks  a  body  of  men  (the 
supplementary  clerks)  whose  services  may  be  made  available 
at  any  time  in  any  office  whatever. ' ' 

Such  was  the  undertaking  which,  in  1860,  the  eminent, 
practical  statesmen  of  both  the  great  parties  seemed  to  have 
thought  to  be  more  worthy  of  their  attention  than  the  manip- 
ulation of  elections  or  the  parcelling  of  patronage — plain  as  it 
is  that  only  about  a  generation  had  passed  since  their  prede- 
cessors were  accustomed  to  give  to  these  latter  subjects  the 
paramount  importance  with  which  we  are  so  painfully  familiar. 
And,  I  cannot  forbear  the  remark  that,  so  far  as  I  recol- 
lect, such  subjects  have  not  yet  commanded  the  attention  of 
our  leading  statesmen,  and  that  until  they  do  there  is  great 
reason  to  fear  that  the  abuses  of  our  civil  administration  will 
continue  to  be  a  subject  of  grave  solicitude.  I  must  pass 
over   all   the  evidence   relating  to  salaries,  promotions,    hours 

are  informed  that  tlie  wisdom  of  a  maxim  of  Napoleon,  that  "  Religion 
and  lionors  were  the  two  things  by  which  mankind  may  be  governed," 
is  so  clear  that  it  ' '  will  not  be  disputed  by  those  who  have  had  converse 
with  their  fellow -men."  The  value  placed  upon  the  eccentric  judgment  of 
this  worthy  and  accomplished  aifthor  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the 
statesmen  of  the  Privy  Council,  of  which  he  was  secretary,  introduced 
competition  for  the  selection  of  its  clerks,  in  1857,  and  that  this  method  is 
still  enforced  in  that  office. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  221 

of  service,  classification,  grading,  discipline,  superannuation,, 
seniority,  removals^ior  cause,  health,  proper  age  for  entering, 
and  leaving  the  service  ;  not  because  they  are  not  full  of  in- 
terest and  instruction,  but  because  we  shall  never  deal  wiselyf 
with  such  matters,  if  even  attention  can  be  gained  for  them,, 
until  we  have  applied  some  salutary  first  principles  to  our  ser-l 
vice.  In  the  present  state  of  public  opinion,  they  would  only! .' 
encumber  the  higher  interests  of  the  subject.  I  will  therefore' 
close  my  references  to  the  report,  with  the  leading  conclusions 
of  the  committee. 

1.  Though  the  pass  examinations,  conducted  by  the  Civil 
Service  Commission,  are  far  more  effective  than  pass  examina- 
tions, as  before  conducted  in  separate  ofiices,  they  are  yet 
greatly  inferior  to  limited  competition. 

2.  Limited  competition  would  be  nmch  improved  if  more 
persons  competed,  and  more  should  therefore  be  nominated 
for  each  competition.  If  they  are  to  continue,  there  must  also 
be  prehminary  examinations  of  those  nominated  by  members 
to  compete,  so  that  there  shall  not,  in  the  future,  be  compe- 
titions between  mere  dunces,  blockheads,  and  ignoramuses. 

3.  The  committee  (whose  report  is  unanimous)  are  convinced 
that  open  competition — free  alike  to  every  British  subject, 
and  an  end,  utterly,  of  the  monopoly  of  patronage,  now  re- 
duced to  mere  selections  for  examination — are  what  the  public 
interest  and  the  better  public  opinion  demand,  and  that  these 
results  must  very  soon  be  reached.  In  not  advising  open  com- 
petition at  once,  as  the  only  entrance  to  the  public  service,  they 
are  influenced  by  prudential  reasons.  They  fear  a  recoil  of 
public  opinion,  if  too  great  changes  are  made  hastily.  In  the 
interest  of  open  competition  itself,  they  advise  a  cautious  ad- 
vance towards  its  complete  introduction. 

4.  While  such  further  experience  is  being  acquired,  the 
committee  recommend  that  pass  examinations  be  wholly  su- 
perseded, that  no  place  in  the  public  service  be  filled  save 
through  a  competition  of  five  or  at  least  three  nominated  per- 
sons, except  that  open  competitions,  wherever  it  be  practicable, 
should  be  introduced  after  the  plan  of  those  which  had  lately  / 
been  shown  to  be  satisfactory  in  the  East  Indian  service.     The 

15 


222  CIVIL   SERVICE   m  GREAT   BRITAII^. 

salutary  system  of  probation,  according  to  wliicli  no  one  was 
to  be  apj)ointed  until  after  a  trial  of  six  months,  was,  I  hardly 
need  say,  retained.  Such  were  the  conclusions  reached  in 
1860.  If  it  was  a  bold  experiment  to  introduce  the  new  sys- 
tem, it  was  certainly  applied  with  prudence  and  watched  with 
care. 


CHAPTEE  XXI. 

DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   NEW    SYSTEM   FKOM    1860   TO    1870. 

Governmeat  acts  on  report  of  1860. — Examinations  to  weed  out  those  unfit  to 
compete. — Competition  extended  to  various  offices. — Two  out  of  five  nom- 
inated sliown  to  be  unfit  even  to  compete. — Competition  for  the  service  of 
India. — Tliose  educated  in  the  public  schools  win  iu  competition. — Have 
been  06,519  persons  examined. — The  new  system  becomes  rapidly  popular 
with  the  people. — Every  one  claimed  to  have  an  equal  right  to  compete. — 
The  official  monopoly  of  nomination  must  be  broken  up. 

If  the  Parliamentary  report  of  1860  did  not  advance  tlie 
merit  sijstem  so  rapidly  as  its  more  radical  friends  desired,  it 
seems  to  liave  convinced  its  enemies  that  there  was  small 
chance  of  arresting  it.  It  had  taken  a  strong  hold  of  the  pub- 
lic mind.  Its  opponents  were  sho^vn  to  be,  with  few  excep- 
tions, officers,  partisans,  and  aristocrats,  with  the  addition  of  a 
few  excellent  persons  with  peculiar  views.  Lord  Palmerston's 
administration  approved  the  report  of  the  committee  of  1860, 
and  ordered  its  recommendations  to  be  carried  into  effect.  I 
must  pass  rapidly  over  the  period  of  ten  years  of  steady  growth 
in  the  reform  sentiment — of  waning  patronage  and  victorious 
competition — which  brought  in  the  great  changes  of  1870  ;  <^ 
making  only  slightest  references  to  the  annual  reports  of  the 
Civil  Service  Commission,  by  which  the  public  mind  was 
being  educated. 

The  report  of  1861  shows  that  The  Treasury,  the  great 
centre  of  patronage,  promptly  acted  upon  the  suggestion  of 
the  Parliamentary  committee  of  1860 — viz.,  that  those  nom- 
inated for  competition  should  first  undergo  a  preliminary  test 
examination,  in  order  to  avoid  the  scandal  of  a  competition 
between  inferior  persons  alone.  The  need  of  such  precaution 
was  expressly  shown  by  the  facts  that,  during  1860,  there  were 
QQ  nominated  candidates  examined  for  the  admiralty  service, 


224  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

ont  of  Tvliich  only  2i  were  competent,  and  tliat  on  a  compe- 
tition for  clerks  in  tlie  customs  service,  at  Hull,  not  a  com]3e- 
tent  person  was  found  among  the  nominated  champions  sent 
there  to  compete. 

The  report  says  that  "  the  desire  is  natural  to  j)i"ovide  for 
faithful  and  long  tried  servants,  which  has  often  led  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  jjei-sons  advanced  in  life" — in  plainer  phrase,  it  is 
natural  for  members  of  Parliament  and  other  officers  having 
the  right  of  nomination  to  make  the  public  service  a  hospital 
for  the  superannuated.  Such  facts  more  and  more  aroused 
the  people  to  a  sense  of  the  imposition  which  members  of 
Parliament  and  other  high  officials  had  long  jjracticed  upon 
the  public  service,  under  the  pretense  of  selecting  good  officers 
from  among  their  acquaintances.  This  same  report  shows 
that,  hostile  as  the  post-office  department  had  been  to  the  new 
system,  even  Mr.  Trollope  was  ready  for  a  comj)etition  for 
letter-carriers,  based  mainly  on  physical  qualifications,  which 
was  also  favored  by  the  Postmaster- General,  the  Duke  of 
Argyle.  Competition  is  also  shown  to  have  been  applied  with 
success  to  apprentices  in  the  dockyards  and  for  the  position  of 
naval  engineers,  and  also  to  the  selection  of  young  men  to  be 
sent  to  China  and  Japan  to  master  the  languages  of  those 
countries.  The  report  for  1862  shows  that  competitions  for 
engineer,  dockyard  and  admiralty  factory  boys  were  successful, 
and  that  open  competition  was  being  extended  elsewhere. 
The  report  for  1865  shows  that  of  361:  persons  nominated 
for  competition,  and  subjected  to  a  preliminary  examination 
before  being  allowed  to  compete,  160,  or  in  a  ratio  greater 
than  two  out  of  every  five,  were  rejected  as  unworthy  even  to 
compete.  'No  one  can  fail  to  see  how  natural  it  is  that  a  sys- 
tem which  arrests  so  many  incompetent,  official  favorites  should 
have  bitter  enemies,  especially  in  official  circles.  This  report 
also  explains  the  successful  progress  of  competition  for  the 
civil  service  of  India,  to  which  I  shall  soon  call  attention, 
showing  that  the  natives  of  that  country  were  winning  official 
places  in  the  contests. 

It  is  shown,  by  the  report  for  1866,  that  196  out  of  411,  and 
in  1867  that  244  out  of  540,  officially  nominated  for  compe- 
tition, were  thrown  out  by  the  preliminary  examination,  as  too 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIX.  225 

stupid  or  ignorant  to  have  a  chance  on  a  competitive  trial,  to 
say  nothing  of  those  who  were  superannuated.  Those  thus 
rejected  doubtless  corresponded  to  the  troublesome  fellows 
AVhom  our  membei-s  of  Congress  are  said  to  sometimes  send 
with  an  approving  letter  to  a  secretary,  which  letter  is  met  by 
another  declaring  them  to  be  blockheads  or  nuisances.  There 
had,  however,  been  some  improvement  in  the  class  nominated  ; 
for,  in  1859,  out  of  1107  nominated  to  fill  258  situations,  only 
397  were  found  qualified,  and  710  were  utterly  rejected  as 
incompetents. '  It  is  also  shown  that  of  the  whole  number  of 
marks  gained  in  competition,  in  1866,  "  eighty-two  per  cent 
were  due  to  subjects  included  in  the  ordinary  curriculum 
(studies)  of  a.  public  school ;^^  and  as  further  showing  in  what 
small  ratio  merely  literary  (or  not  directly  practical)  knowl- 
edge excludes  those  rejected,  I  may  add  that  the  report  for 
1867  shows  that  of  818  rejections  in  that  year  (from  the  3038 
examined)  805  were  made  by  reason  of  deficiency  in  knowl- 
edge of  "  subjects  connected  with  the  i3ractical  work  of  the 
ofiice, "  or  of  ignorance  in  the  matters  of  ' '  reading,  spelling, 
arithmetic,  and  handwriting,"  and  that  only  13  were  rejected 
by  reason  of  a  want  of  higher  knowledge  ! 

From  the  report  for  1868,  it  appears  that  the  whole  number 
nominated  for  examination  under  the  commission,  during  the 
thirteen  years  of  its  existence,  had  been  (unless  a  few  may 
have  been  twice  nominated)  59,658.  Some  of  them  seem 
not  to  have  had  the  courage  to  appear,  for  only  46,528  had 
been  actually  examined.  Of  these  9461  had  been  rejected  ;  of 
whom  480  were  rejected  for  being  physically  disqualified,  and 
616  by  reason  of  unsatisfactory  character." 

This  report  also  shows  that  competition  had  been  extended 
to  the  public  service  at  Ceylon  and  Mauritius,  to  the  Irish 
constabulary  force,  to  dockyard  artificers,  and  to  the  public 
inspectors  of  schools  throughout  Great  Britain. 

The  report  for  1869  shows  that  the  whole  number  of  candi- 
dates for  examinations  whose  names  appeared  on  the  books  in 

'  Report  on  Civil  Service,  1860. 

"  But  (as  I  understand)  the  two  last  classes  of  rejections  are  independ- 
ent of  those  who  were  rejected  for  the  same  causes  for  want  of  proper  cer- 
tificates before  any  examination  took  place. 


226  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

the  office  of  the  commission — that  office  having  become  the 
great  centre  of  information  relating  to  official  life — had  reached 
66,519.  In  addition  to  those  who  had  failed  to  appear,  10,558 
had  been  rejected  as  disqualified  for  various  causes  ;  and,  in- 
cluded in  this  number,  were  2283  who  had  been  preliminarily 
rejected,  as  not  even  fit  to  be  allowed  to  go  into  competi- 
tions. These  figures  mark  the  extent  of  the  prostitution  of 
Parliamentary  nominations.  If  by  reason  of  so  numerous  re- 
jections, many  enemies  of  the  new  system  were  made  among 
officials,  party  leaders  and  their  dependents,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  its  keej)ing  of  incompetency  out  of  the  public  ser- 
vice, and  the  honor  it  conferred  on  education  and  good  char- 
acter, had  gained  for  it  fiftyfold  more  friends  among  the 
people  at  large.  The  report  for  1869  shows  that  during  the 
fourteen  years  of  examinations  under  the  Commission,  8169 
persons  had  been  rejected  as  deficient  in  mental  ability  and 
literary  attainments.  How  few  of  these  failures  were  due  to 
anything  but  stupidity  or  disgraceful  ignorance  may  be  inferred 
from  this  extract :  "If  the  subjects  of  examination  be  divided 
into  two  classes,  one  including  reading,  spelling,  handwriting, 
arithmetic,  and  (in  the  case  of  each  department),,  the  subjects 
connected  with  the  practical  work  of  that  office  ;  the  other 
comprising  those  which  are  prescribed  as  tests  of  general  in- 
telligence and  cultivation  ;  the  number  of  rejections  caused 
by  failures  in  the  latter  class  of  subjects  has  been  only  271,  as 
against  Y899  cases  of  failure  in  the  former  class."  In  face  of 
such  facts,  it  was,  of  course,  impossible  longer  to  pretend  that 
ornamental  attainments  won  the  day  or  that  essential  and  prac- 
tical knowledge  were  not  decisive.  The  old  Parliamentary 
monopoly  of  nominations  had  become  not  only  untenable,  but 
ridiculous.  The  change  in  public  opinion,  since  1850,  had 
been  as  great  as  that  which  had  taken  place,  in  this  countiy  on 
the  slave  question,  between  1840  and  1860.  The  popular  sup- 
port of  the  merit  system  had  become  so  overwhelming — indeed 
so  nearly  universal — that  opposition  by  any  one  cast  something 
like  suspicion  upon  his  motives.  The  thought  even  of  mak- 
ing it  a  party  or  Parliamentary  issue  had  ceased  to  exist.  The 
cause  of  civil  service  reform  had  become  identified  with  that 
of  common  justice,  popular  education,  and  official  integrity  ; 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  227 

all  of  which  it  had  greatly  strengthened.  The  people  of  Eng- 
land had  finally  decided  that  it  was  a  pubKc  disgrace  and  a 
gross  injustice  to  allow  a  monopoly  of  selections  for  appoint- 
ment in  the  public  service,  on  the  part  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment or  any  other  officials,  to  longer  continue.  They  de- 
manded, as  the  right  of  every  citizen,  that  he  should  be  at 
Kberty,  without  any  official  interference  or  consent,  to  present 
himself,  in  conformity  to  just  regulations,  for  examination  by 
the  Civil  Service  Commission,  for  a  place  in  the  public  ser- 
vice. "  I  think  that  all  persons  have,  prima  facie,  an  equal 
right  to  be  candidates,  if  they  are  fit  ;  and  if  you  do  not  con- 
cede that  right  and  make  it  accessible,  you  do  injustice,  first, 
to  the  pubHc  service,  and  then  to  her  Majesty's  subjects  gen- 
erally who  are  excluded. ' '  '  Here  is  a  principle  of  democratic 
equality  and  common  justice  maintained  in  a  monarchy,  but 
yet  unrecognized  in  this  republic.  We  shall  next  see  how  this 
principle  was  reduced  to  practice  in  1870. 

'  Report  on  Civil  Service,  1860,  p.  286. 


CHAPTEK  XXII. 

THE  OEDEE  FOE  OPEN  COMPETITION  IN  18Y0. 

Right  of  nomination  lost  its  value. — Officers  not  willing  to  defend  their  mo- 
nopoly of  nominations. — Order  for  open  competition. — Its  provisions. — 
Probation  retained. — Exceptions  to  open  competition. — Nature  of  the  op- 
position made. — General  principle  of  the  new  method  provided  for. 

The  demand  for  the  suppression  of  the  official  monopoly  of 
patronage  had  become  too  strong  for  the  administration  to 
withstand,  had  it  been  so  disposed.  Even  the  more  partisan 
members  of  Parliament  had  ceased  to  care  mnch  for  a  right  to 
nominate  ;  because  the  inevitable  result  had  been  that  a  great 
portion  of  those  whom  they  most  wished  should  secure  places 
were  thrown  out  in  disgrace  by  the  preliminary  examination, 
and  not  a  few  of  the  residue  had  been  distanced  in  the  com- 
petition. To  enable  their  jproteges  to  succeed,  they  must 
nominate  the  most  worthy  young  men,  but  that  necessity  de- 
prived their  perquisite  of  most  of  its  value  in  their  eyes  ;  since 
it  would  neither  aid  an  election  nor  make  a  place  for  an  old 
servant.  None  but  the  most  brazen-faced  and  unscrupulous 
were  willing  to  appear  longer  as  sponsors  of  the  prostitution 
of  the  executive  power  they  had  usurped,  now  that  the  people 
comprehended  that  it  was  prized  by  its  possessors  in  the  exact 
ratio  that  it  was  costly  and  demoralizing  to  the  public  service. 
A  monopoly  which  had  prevailed  for  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  was  almost  without  a  claimant  or  a  defender. 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1870,  the  administration,  through  an 
executive  order  in  Council,  and  without  any  action  by  Parlia- 
ment, gave  effect  to  the  wishes  of  the  people  by  abolishing 
official  patronage  and  favoritism  (and  limited  competition  as 
an  incident),  and  substituting  open  competition  in  their  place.* 

*  "  Our  object  was  to  introduce  competition.  I  think  that  everything  we 
did,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  rigidly  subordinated  to  that. " — Testimony  of  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Report  of  CDmmittee,  1873,  p.  226. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  229 

The  order  declares  "  tliat  the  qiiahfications  of  all  such  per- 
sons as  may  be  proposed  to  be  appointed,  either  permanently 
or  temporarily,  to  any  situation  or  employment,  in  any  de- 
partment in  the  civil  service,  shall,  before  they  are  employed, 
be  tested  by  or  under  the  directions  of  said  Commissioners  ; 
and  no  person  shall  be  employed  in  any  department  of  the 
civil  service  until  he  shall  have  been  reported  by  the  said  Com- 
missioners to  be  qualified  to  be  admitted  on  jyfobation  to  such 
situation  or  employment, ' ' 

"  All  appointments  which  it  maybe  necessary  to  make  after 
the  31st  of  August  next  (1870),  .  .  .  shall  be  made  by 
reasons  of  competitive  examinations  according  to  regulations, 
.  .  .  open  to  all  persons  (of  requisite  age,  health,  char- 
acter, and  other  qualifications  prescribed  in  the  said  regula- 
tions), who  may  be  desirous  of  attending  the  same."  ' 

These  j^rovisions  do  not  extend  to  mere  day  laborers  or  to 
wholly  unskilled  labor,  but  they  do  extend  to  skilled  laborers  in 
continuous  public  employment.  And  there  are  exceptions  of 
three  classes  of  ofiicial  persons  (very  few  in  all),  whom  I  shall 
more  particularly  describe.  The  order  then  provides  that  the 
Civil  Service  Commissioners,  the  Commissioners  of  the  Treas- 
ury, and  the  chiefs  of  the  departments  shall  frame  proper 
rules  or  regulations  for  putting  open  competition  into  prac- 
tice. The  regulations  or  rules  provided  methods  of  ascertain- 
ing the  age,  character,  and  physical  health  as  well  as  the 
attainments  and  practical  capacity  for  the  public  business  of 
those  who  offer  themselves  for  competition.  The  appoint- 
ments were  to  be  given  to  those  shown  by  the  competition  to 
have  the  highest  qualifications  for  the  service  ;  and  it  will  be 
noticed  that  it  is  not  mere  ornamental  or  literary  attainments 
which  are  to  be  made  the  subject  of  the  examinations,  "  hut 
knowledge  and  ability  to  enter  on  the  discharge  of  his  official 
duties.''''  And  to  secure  a  still  higher  guaranty  of  practical, 
executive  capacity,  the  long-tried  rule  of  probation  was  re- 
tained and  made  more  stringent,  No  actual  appointment  was 
to  be  made  except  at  the  end  of  a  six-months'  trial  of  ofiicial 

'  Subject  to  the  payment  of  small  fees  which  were  intended  to  cover  the 
expenses  of  the  examinations,  but  they  have  been  made  so  light  as  to  pay 
only  about  one  third  of  such  expense. 


230 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 


work,  during  which  time  ' '  a  formal  record  of  the  particulars 
of  the  result  of  such  probation"  (of  course  covering  deport- 
ment as  well  as  capacity)  was  to  be  kept,  "  and  the  chief  of 
the  department  "  (as  used  here  nearly  the  equivalent  of  a  chief 
of  bureau  with  us)  must  sign  and  declare  satisfactory  this 
record,  and  send  it  to  the  Civil  Service  Commission  for  pres- 
ervation. 

So  far  from  such  provisions  being  an  inadequate  test  of 
practical  capacity,  as  some  mistaken  people  have  supposed, 
they  have  been  found  to  be  highly  effective.  They  have  been 
objected  to  as  being  much  too  severe,  since  young  men  might 
lose  their  places  by  reason  of  an  unsatisfactory  probation. 
The  answer  was  that  applicants,  or  their  friends,  must,  at 
their  own  peril,  form  a  correct  judgment  of  their  ability  for 
practical  work. ' 

Before  considering  the  j^ractical  effects  of  the  great  changes 
which  this  order  introduced,  we  may  well  reflect  a  moment 


/ 


/ 


^  A  few  words  of  explanation  may  make  the  exceptions  to  competition 
more  intelligible.  There  are  three  classes  of  them.  The  first  embraces  the 
34  to  50  political  officers  who  go  out  with  an  administration,  and  to  which  1 
have  before  made  reference. 

There  are  some  provisions  as  to  the  second  class  in  this  order  of  1870  ; 
and  the  clauses  of  the  Superannuation  act  before  referred  to  are  to  nearly 
the  same  effect.  The  two  provisions  together  cover  cases  (always  very  few 
in  number)  wliere  persons  of  maturer  years  may  be  needed  in  the  public  ser- 
vice, who  shall  possess  professional  or  peculiar  attainments  of  a  high  order 
not  acquired  in  the  usual  course  of  public  instruction  or  of  experience  in 
the  service.  In  such  cases,  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury,  together  with  the 
head  of  department  where  such  an  appointment  is  needed,  may  make  a 
selection,  and  thereupon  there  is  to  be  a  special  examination  and  certificate 
of  qualification  by  the  Civil  Service  Commissioners,  upon  which,  the  same 
being  satisfactory,   the  appointment  may  be  made,  but  not  before. 

The  third  class  of  exceptions  from  open  competition  covers  promotions. 
They  are,  in  the  main,  based  on  merit,  either  tested  by  limited  competition 
among  those  within  the  departments,  or  otherwise  tested,  as  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  explain.     In  some  ofl^ces  meritorious  seniority  is  given  weight. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  entire  exceptions  to  open  competition, 
as  the  rule  for  admissions  under  the  order  of  1870,  can  hardly  exceed  one 
per  cent  of  the  whole  number  in  the  public  service.  The  lower  grades  of 
post-offices,  however,  are  not  included  in  that  order. 

But  in  order  to  guard  against  any  unforeseen  embarrassments  from  a 
""change  so  sweeping,  provision  was  made  for  taking  particular  officers  out 
of  competition  as  public  exigency  might  require. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  231 

upon  its  nature  and  the  convictions  whicli  enforced  its  adop- 
tion. We  should  take  notice  that  the  order  not  merely  arrested 
all  interference  by  the  members  of  the  legislature  with  ex- 
ecutive appointments,  but  it  also  involved,  and  in  substance 
proclaimed,  a  surender,  by  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  and 
by  every  other  high  officer  (with  the  small  exceptions  just 
pointed  out),  of  all  opportunity  to  make  any  selfish  or  partisan 
use  of  the  appointing  power.  Recognizing  the  inherent  duty 
of  always  using  that  power  so  as  to  secure  the  persons  best 
qualified  to  serve  the  people,  the  order  declared  that  the  open 
competition  provided  for  was  the  most  rehable  means  of  ascer- 
taining such  persons  ;  and  that,  upon  their  being  ascertained, 
the  duty  of  appointment  was  imperative.  The  usurped  au- 
thority thus  reclaimed  from  the  members  of  the  legislature 
was  not  an  increase  of  executive  power  in  any  arbitrary  sense, 
or  even  in  any  sense  whatever  ;  for  the  freedom  of  open  com- 
petition was  at  the  same  time  extended  to  the  whole  body  of 
the  British  people  ;  and  hence  it  was  not  the  Executive,  but 
the  people  themselves — common  justice,  general  liberty,  per- 
sonal character  and  capacity — ^which  had  really  won  the  victory 
and  made  the  gain.  If  the  executive  had,  in  one  sense,  a 
larger  discretion  than  before,  it  was  only  a  discretion  to  dis- 
charge a  public  duty,  by  recognizing  and  rewarding  merit,  as 
tested  by  fair  public  standards  which  all  right-minded  men 
approved.  It  was  no  discretion  to  grant  favors  or  to  encroach 
on  liberty.  The  order  was,  in  short,  a  grand  triumph  of  pa- 
triotism, character,  education,  and  capacity  over  selfishness, 
official  favoritism,  partisan  intrigue,  and  whatever  else  had 
been  corrupt,  immoral,  or  unjust  in  the  action  of  parties  or  the 
bestowal  of  office.  It  marked  the  highest  elevation  of  justice 
and  official  self-denial  that  governmental  action,  in  any  coun- 
try, had  ever  reached  ;  for  though  examinations  and  com- 
petitions had  been  used  in  a  quahfied  form  in  France,  Ger- 
many, Sweden,  and  several  other  European  countries,  they 
were  not  wholly  without  official  dictation  nor  were  they  free 
to  all  citizens  alike.  Open  competition,  thus  estal)lislied  in 
Great  Britain,  said,  in  substance,  to  every  British  subject : 
The  administration  confers  no  favors  by  appointments,  the 
great  parties   arc  not  allowed  to  coerce  you,  the  high  officers 


232  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT  BRITArN". 

are  forbidden  to  use  the  appointing  power  capriciously  ;  and, 
subject  to  the  just  regulations  prescribed,  each  of  you  is  at 
liberty  to  compete  for,  and,  if  you  are  the  most  worthy,  you 
will  win  a  place  in  the  pubhc  service  of  your  country,  there  to 
remain  as  long  as  you  serve  her  honorably  and  efficiently  and 
her  interests  require  you.  The  able  and  experienced  statesmen 
who,  after  the  partisan  system  had  been  tried  for  more  than 
five  generations,  thus  brought  in  the  Tnerit  system  in  its  com- 
pletest  form,  with  no  protest  from  either  party,  must,  I 
think,  be  regarded  as  condemning,  more  emphatically  by 
their  action  than  they  could  by  any  language,  the  entire 
theory  of  securing  power  for  parties,  stability  for  adminis- 
trations, or  economy,  purity,  or  safety  for  nations,  by  a 
partisan  use  of  the  appointing  power.  They  did  not  con- 
demn party  government  in  its  true  form,  or  when  acting 
by  just  methods  ;  but  only  its  prostitution  to  the  purposes 
of  a  partisan  system  of  appointments.  Thus,  the  British  peo- 
ple— with  whom  party  government  originated,  and  by  whom 
it  has  been  given  the  most  absolute  sway — have,  after  a  long 
and  earnest  discussion  of  the  subject — such  as  has  taken  place 
in  no  other  nation — demanded  and  applauded  that  great  change 
— and,  by  their  acts,  have  expressed  their  profound  convic- 
tion that  all  that  is  salutary  in  political  j^arties  will  survive 
the  loss  of  all  that  is  corrupt  or  venal,  and  their  determination 
that,  thereafter,  those  in  power  shall  seek  8U23port,  not  through 
intrigue  and  manipulation,  or  through  influence  secured  by 
the  prostitution  of  the  appointing  power,  but  uj)on  their 
record  of  good  administration.  In  approving  this  order,  they 
practically  said  to  the  Crown,  to  the  administration,  and  to 
the  great  parties  :  Hereafter,  as  before,  the  party  majorities 
may  carry  all  elections,  name  all  members  of  the  Cabinet,  make 
all  laws,  and  guide  all  national  action,  whether  domestic  or 
foreign.  In  those  high  spheres,  the  principles  of  parties, 
the  worth  and  ability  of  their  leaders,  the  wisdom  of  their 
policy  must  gain  public  favor  or  fail  in  the  attempt.  With 
such  prizes  to  win,  elections  can  never  lose  their  wholesome 
interest,  nor  citizens  be  indifferent  to  their  results.  The  ex- 
aminations will  cause  the  most  worthy  to  be  selected  as  sub- 
ordinates to  carry  into  effect  the  instruction  of  their  superiors. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  233 

But  we  neither  wish,  nor  will  we  allow,  any  action  by  parties, 
or  anything  to  be  done  by  postmasters,  collectors,  or  other  sub- 
ordinate officers,  or  any  processes  of  electing  members  of  Pai-- 
hament,  which  depend  upon  making  merchandise  of  the  ap- 
pointing j)ower  or  upon  treating  public  places  as  perquisites  or 
spoils.  After  the  partisan  system  in  its  long  trial  under  its 
favorite  forms  had  failed,  we  allowed  party  managers  and  pub- 
lic officials  to  decide,  during  the  period  from  1855  to  1870, 
who  *  should  be  examined  for  admission  to  the  pubKc  service. 
The  records  show  that  inferior  and  unworthy  persons  were  gen- 
erally nominated.  Members  of  Parliament  did  not  nominate 
the  most  worthy  among  their  acquaintances,  but  they  used 
their  monopoly  in  a  selfish  and  partisan  spirit.  We  now  there- 
fore suppress  the  monopoly.  We  order  the  trial  whether 
parties  cannot  make  their  issues  u]3on  sound  principles  and 
good  worlvs  ;  whether  better  men  will  not  apply  for  admis- 
sion to  the  public  service,  now  that  official  and  partisan  tyranny 
has  been  dislodged  at  its  gates  ;  whether  the  moral  tone  of 
politics  will  not  rise,  now  that  patronage  and  favoritism  have 
been  expelled  from  the  departments. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

FIEST   EXPEEIENCE   OF   OPEN   COMPETITION.    ' 

Competitions  extended  to  the  military  schools. — Competition  in  India. — An 
aristocratic  division  into  classes. — Numbers  competing. — Extended  to  vari- 
ous offices,  civil,  military,  and  naval. — Better  men  secured  by  open  com- 
petition.— ^Obstructions  by  officers. 

The  report  of  the  Civil  Service  Coramission  for  1870  sliows 
that  the  whole  number  of  those  who  had  been  before  the  com- 
mission during  the  period  of  limited  competition  had  been 
Tl,971  ;  a  number  considerably  greater  than  the  whole  body 
of  those  in  the  British  Civil  Service,  who  are  properly  des- 
ignated as  officers  or  clerks.'  It  also  shows  that  examinations 
for  admissions  to  the  Military  College  at  Sandhurst,  for  the 
Military  Academy  at  Woolwich,  and  for  direct  commissions  in 
the  army,  were  thereafter  to  be  conducted  under  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice Commission  ;  and  that  one  open  competition  had  just  been 
held  for  Guch  admission.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  though 
we  instituted  examinations  for  admissions  to  our  naval  and 
military  schools  before  such  examinations  were  introduced 
in  England,  the  English  Government,  encouraged  by  the  suc- 
cess of  their  tests  of  merit  for  civil  appointment,  has  rapidly 
made  her  selection  of  cadets  for  the  army  and  navy  far  more 
independent  than  ours,  both  of  official  favoritism  and  of  parti- 
san dictation.  I  need  not  enter  into  the  details  concerning  the 
new  rules,  the  general  principles  of  which  I  have  already  ex- 
plained. I  may  say,  however,  that  they  not  only  provide  for 
examinations  in  elementary  subjects  (essential  for  all  or  nearly 
all  candidates  to  understand),  but  for  examinations  extending  to 
that  special  information  and  skill  necessary  in  particular  officers 
or  kinds  of  service  ;  or,  in  other  words,  they  range,  in  their  prac- 

'  Exclusive  of  postmasters. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

tical  bearing,  from  reading,  writing,  and  the  elementary : 
arithmetic,  to  knowledge  of  materials  and  skill  and  attaij 
adequate  for  applying  the  patent,  customs,  and  inland  revenue 
laws,  so  that  fraud  may  be  detected  and  the  money  due  to  the 
government  may  be  more  efficiently  collected.  I  might  quote 
pages,  if  it  was  worth  while,  in  answer  to  the  popular  and 
superficial  criticism  so  often  made,  to  the  effect  that  exami- 
nations and  probation  cannot  test  the  attainments  or  capacity 
needed  for  the  real  work  of  the  offices.  But  if  the  fact  that 
the  most  practical  nation  in  the  world — the  nation  having  the 
most  complex  and  difficult  civil  administration  that  has  ever 
existed — ^has,  as  the  result  of  varied  and  long  continued  trial, 
demonstrated  to  its  satisfaction  that  such  theoretical  criticism 
is  unfounded,  shall  not  be  regarded  as  decisive,  surely  a  more 
extended  discussion  of  the  subject  would  be  useless. 

In  the  report  for  1872,  the  first  results  of  open  competition 
on  a  grand  scale  are  set  forth  at  length.*  So  democratic  or 
republican  an  innovation  as  that  of  opening  the  whole  civil 
service  to  the  free  competition  of  all  classes,  very  naturally, 
not  a  little  alarmed  the  more  aristocratic  officials ;  and  they 
were  strong  enough  in  1870  to  enforce  a  division  of  the  new 
clerks  into  two  classes,  known  as  Class  I.  and  Class  II.,  the 
attainments  and  work  of  the  former  to  be  of  a  higher  order. 
If  this  division  was  not  in  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  order  of 
1870,  it  was  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  division  of  the  legal 
profession  into  barristers  and  attorneys,  and  of  the  legislature 
into  Lords  and  Commons.  We  shall  find  that  this  aristocratic 
distinction  has  been  disapproved  and  substantially  abolished  by 
that  same  just  and  liberal  sentiment  which  demanded  open 
competition,  though  not  before  it  had  produced  both  jeal- 
ousies and  expensive  comj^lications.  The  belief  was  so  gen- 
eral that  open  competition  would  introduce  a  better  class  of 

'  This  report,  very  inexpressive  in  form,  with  the  examination  papers 
and  correspondence  appended  (covering  both  the  domestic  and  Indian 
service),  fills  more  than  800  large  pages  ;  and  the  annual  reports  that  follow 
are  not  much  less  voluminous  ;  the  whole  action  of  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission being  set  forth  at  length,  in  order  to  give  the  utmost  publicity  to 
proceedings  peculiarly  liable  to  be  prejudiced  by  charges  of  unfairness,  if 
any  part  of  them  should  be  involved  in  mystery  or  confusion. 


236  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

public  servants,  and  thereby  enable  a  reduction  to  be  made 
of  the  number,  and  hence  of  expense  in  the  service,  that 
preparation  for  that  result  was  made  in  the  outset  ;  and  it 
was  fully  realized.  The  report  for  1872  shows  that  since 
open  competition,  under  the  order  of  1870,  had  commenced, 
2684  persons  liad  competed  for  355  places  (exclusive  of 
those  in  the  Post  Office  Department),  and  those  355  places 
had  been  assigned  to  the  most  meritorious.  Besides  these 
competitions,  there  was  open  competition  for  selecting  boys 
to  fill  the  junior  clerkships  in  the  Post  Office  Department,  for 
newspaper  sorters  and  for  telegraph  messengers  ;  1995  such 
situations  having  been  filled  between  July,  1870,  and  June, 
1872,  by  tlie  most  worthy  as  indicated  by  competition  between 
10,065  persons.  Postmaster  James,  of  the  New  York  City 
Post  Office,  now  keeps  his  "sorters"  up  to  their  rare  con- 
dition of  efficiency  by  the  same  kind  of  examinations.  Nor 
do  these  include  all  ;  for  there  were  also  the  competitors  for 
the  admiralty  and  military  service,  and  for  the  Irish  con- 
stabulary, raising  the  total  candidates  to  14,123.  And  even 
this  immense  number  is  exclusive  of  the  examinations  for  the 
entire  public  service  of  British  India.  In  these  competitions, 
we  have  the  means  of  making  the  first  practical  comparison, 
on  a  large  scale,  between  those  who  presented  themselves  for 
examination,  directly  and  freely  from  the  people,  and  those 
who  had  been  sent  in  by  the  nomination-monopolists  ;  and  the 
language  of  the  report  on  this  vital  point  is  as  follows  :  ' '  But 
it  is  more  important  to  observe  that  the  standard  of  pro- 
ficiency exhibited  by  the  successful  comjjetitors,  and  even  by 
many  of  the  unsuccessful,  has  been  very  satisfactory,  and  far 
in  advance  of  that  which  we /"ound  it  possible  to  enforce  under 
tJie  'previous  system  of  nomination.  !Nor  can  we  refrain  from 
expressing  a  confident  hope  that,  while  an  imjwrtant  branch 
of  the  service  will  thus  gain  by  the  appointment  of  officers  of 
superior  intelligence,  a  further  and  wider  benefit  will  result  to 
the  public  generally  from  the  stimulus  which  these  large  com- 
petitions for  valuable  privileges  must  impart  to  elementary 
education  in  each  of  the  numerous  districts  in  which  they  are 
held. ' '  They  were  held  from  time  to  time  in  various  parts 
of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland  ;  and  weekly  in  London. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  237 

Instructive  examples  nre  next  given  of  the  successful  use  of 
open  competition  for  the  selection  of  persons  required  to 
possess  technical,  scientific,  and  even  mechanical  proficiency, 
but  1  cannot  spare  space  for  them. '  The  report  further  shows 
that  such  competition  had  been  applied  for  the  selection  of 
clerks  in  the  House  of  Lords  ;  and  also  by  Earl  Granville,  the 
Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs,  for  the  selection  of  student  in- 
terpreters  in  the  consular  service.'' 

The  eighteenth  report  of  the  commission  brings  the  new 
system  down  to  January  1st,  ISTJr.  It  shows  that  under  vari- 
ous pretences  causing  delay  in  applying  open  competition, 
and  through  the  facihties  afforded  by  the  complication  of 
offices  in  an  old  country  and  the  natural  desire  of  officials  to 
retain  unKmited  authority,'  a  considerable  number  of  j)laces 
had  still  been  filled  through  nominations  and  Hmited  compe- 
tition. Yet  open  competition  had  rapidly  advanced.  It  had 
been  for  the  first  time  extended  to  appointments  to  cavahy  and 
infantry  regiments,  and  to  applicants  for  places  in  the  commis- 
sary department  of  the  army.  Besides  those  examined  for  the 
mihtary  service,  and  for  service  in  British  India,  it  appears 
that  23,261  had  come  before  the  commission  since  the  order 
of  1870. 

'  See  Report  1872,  pp.  X.  and  XI. 

'  It  would  seem  that  great  influence  had  been  used  to  take  certain  p'.aces 
out  of  competition  under  the  order  ;  and  a  moderate  number  had,  for  appar- 
ently good  reasons,  been  excepted. 

'  My  theory  is,  that  all  persons  in  authority  are  the  natural  enemies  of 
competition,  and  that  if  they  have  an  opportunity  of  evading  it,  they  will 
use  it. — Investigation,  1874,  vol.  i.,  p.  125,  Evidence  of  Mr.  Lowe. 
16 


CHAPTER  XXIY. 

PAELIAMEXTAET    IXQUIRY   INTO   THE    CIVIL    SERVICE   IN    IS 73. 

A  thorough  investigation  ordered. — Economy  the  object. — Patronage  being 
at  an  end,  members  are  ready  to  reduce  numbers  and  salaries. — Spirit  and 
scope  of  the  inquiiy. — Sinecures  brought  to  light. — How  open  competition 
tends  to  economy. — Officers  allowed  to  vote. — No  official  fraud  or  corrup- 
tion found. — Open  competition  approved. 

The  investigation  of  18Y3  is  mainly  instructive  for  reasons 
peculiar  to  itself.  The  committee  consisted  of  seventeen  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  its  membership  shows 
that  the  importance  of  the  subject  had  not  fallen  in  the 
estimation  of  that  body.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  the  pres- 
ent Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  chairman  ;  Mr.  Child- 
ers  (of  Mr.  Gladstone's  cabinet),  Mr.  Smith  (now  of  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli's cabinet),  Mr.  McLaren  (a  brother-in-law  of  John 
Bright),  and  Mr.  Yernon  Harcourt  were  upon  the  committee. 
The  report,  in  three  volumes,  was,  if  possible,  even  more 
thorough  and  searching  than  those  already  referred  to.  I 
should  think  it  safe  to  say  that,  if  all  the  investigations 
made  by  us  since  the  formation  of  our  government,  with  a 
view  to  economy  in  our  civil  administration,  were  united 
into  one,  such  united  reports  would  fail  to  bring  together 
so  complete  and  important  a  mass  of  facts  and  explanations. 
The  third  volume  of  the  report  alone  would  fill  nearly  a 
thousand  pages  of  our  documentary  size  ;  and  it  contains 
answers  to  more  than  five  thousand  questions,  besides  many 
subordinate  reports  and  special  statements.  Every  class  of 
officials  and  employes,  from  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the 
head  of  the  Treasury  down  to  messengers  and  post  boys, 
were  examined,  and  nothing  was  allowed  to  screen  scandalous 
secrets.  The  special — I  may  say  the  only — object  of  this 
investigation  was  to  ' '  inquire  whether  any  and  what  reduc- 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  239 

tions  can  be  effected  in  the  expenditures  for  the  civil  ser- 
vice." The  prior  investigations  had  been  directed  to  the 
best  means  of  selecting  and  promoting  officers,  to  the  dis- 
cipline, duties,  and  methods  best  adapted  to  secure  honest 
and  efficient  administration.  This  had  for  its  object  retrench- 
ment and  economy,  in  harmony  with  the  new  system.  Noth- 
ing is  more  significant,  in  connection  with  this  inquiry,  than 
the  facts  that  it  could  be  ordered  with  such  breadth  and  car- 
ried forward  with  such  comj)leteness  and  severity.  "When 
members  could  see  that  retrenchment  might  abolish  places 
they  wished  to  fiU,  send  back  to  them  their  poor  deiDcndents, 
or  cut  down  the  salaries  of  the  partisan  henchmen  to  whom 
they  owed  a  debt  of  gratitude — to  say  nothing  of  the  scandals 
of  which  such  results  might  provoke  a  disclosure — how  could 
they  be  expected  to  have  courage  for  economy  ?  But  limited 
competition,  from  1855  to  1870,  having  excluded  most  of 
the  unworthy,  and  open  competition,  since  1870,  having  closed 
the  doors  of  patronage  and  favoritism,  members  of  Parliament 
had  no  longer  the  same  interest  to  resist  retrenchment.  The 
investigation  of  1873  was,  therefore,  a  natural  outcome  of  the 
new  system  of  selections.  I  cannot  take  the  space  required 
to  do  justice  to  this  great  inquest  of  economy  ;  and  I  fear 
we  are  not  likely  to  appreciate  its  value  until  we  shall  have 
taken  patronage  away  from  our  officials  and  freely  opened 
our  public  service  to  the  personal  worth  of  the  nation. 
Some  general  explanations  must  suffice.  Tlie  inquiry  was  not 
confined  to  questions  about  the  lowest  salaries  that  would 
secure  clerks  and  the  fewest  clerks  that  could  be  made  to  do 
the  work  at  the  period  of  the  reports.  It  extended  to  the 
whole  subject  of  organization,  official  authority,  subordination, 
discipline,  hours  of  labor,  mechanical  ajjpliances,  holy  days, 
health  and  sickness,  ventilation  of  offices,  pride  in  the  service, 
honesty  efficiency  in  making  collections,  satisfaction  in  per- 
forming public  duty,  promotions,  increase  of  pay  with  length 
of  service,  retiring  allowances,  proper  age  for  coming  into  and 
going  out  of  the  public  service — in  all  tlie  aspects  in  which 
these  matters  bear  upon  economy  and  efficiency  of  administra- 
tion in  its  long  range.  I  say,  in  its  long  range  ;  for  while  a 
purpose  of  promoting  direct  economy  is  everywhere  apparent, 


240  CIVIL   SERVICE    m   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

it  is  not  less  apparent  that  it  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  surest 
means  of  inducing  young  men  of  worth  to  enter  and  remain  in 
the  service,  at  a  low  salary,  that  they  should  feel  that  their 
compensation  and  tenure  were  not  utterly  precarious,  and 
that  their  official  relations  would  not  be  needlessly  degrading 
or  disagreeable.  The  authors  of  the  report  evidently  believe 
that  if  the  surroundings  of  a  man,  in  the  minor  civil  service, 
are  not  inconsistent  with  amanly  self-respect,  and  if  ho  is  not 
jiable,  every  hour,  to  be  dismissed  upon  the  spite  of  an  official 
or  the  greedy  claim  of  a  party  managei*,  he  is  not  only  more 
likely  to  be  honest  and  efficient,  but  certain  to  be  willing  to  ac- 
cept a  lower  salary.  The  purpose  of  making  the  public  service 
honorable  and  manly,  and  hence  attractive  and  economical, 
everywhere  finds  expression.  I  am  strongly  impressed  with 
the  fact,  so  often  shown  in  these  reports,  that,  in  this  aristo- 
cratic, old  country,  those  in  the  public  service  are  treated  with 
more  consideration  and  justice  than  are  those  in  our  public  ser- 
vice. Their  freedom  of  opinion  is  as  much  greater  as  their 
tenure  of  office  is  more  secure.  Under  the  partisan  system, 
they  had  been  disfranchised  by  the  statutes  of  George  III. ,  as 
the  only  means  of  securing  freedom  of  elections  ;  but  the  merit 
system  had  made  it  practicable  to  remove  that  disability,  and 
since  1868 '  they  had  been  as  free  to  vote  as  any  other  citizen  ; 
and,  having  a  tenure  during  good  conduct  and  capacity,  they 
were  no  longer  driven  into  election  contests  to  make  sure  of 
their  own  places.  And  here  I  will,  repeat  a  fact,  emphasized  in 
the  inquiry  of  1873 — that  where  excessive  numbers  have  been 
employed,  it  is  treated  as  the  fault  of  the  government  or  of 
its  higher  officers,  for  which  the  nation  is  responsible  ;  and  the 
supernumeraries  are  not  arbitrarily  dismissed,  but  are  given 
the  first  vacancies  for  which  they  are  qualified.  Our  practice 
in  that  regard  would  be  looked  upon  as  cruel  in  England. 
Even  when  an  office  is  abolished,  some  provision  as  a  general 
rule  is  made  for  him  who  filled  it.  And  I  hardly  need  add 
that,  as  a  natural  consequence,  British  officials,  in  the  lower 
grade — such  as  doorkeepers  and  boatmen — not  less  than  the 
highest,  cherish,  as  I  am  compelled  to  believe,  much  kinder 

■'  Act  31  aud  32  Yict.  ch.  78,  as  amended,  ia  1874,  by  37  and  38  Yict.  ch.  22. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  241 

and  more  respectful  feelings  than  are  found  among  our  officials 
towards  their  superiors  and  towards  the  public  service  gen- 
erally. Nor  can  I  doubt  that  sucli  provisions,  by  awakening 
gratitude  and  a  sense  of  duty,  advance  economy  and  fidelity 
alike.  But  I  have  departed  too  much  from  my  general  plan, 
which  is  to  reserve  the  practical  results  of  the  new  system  for 
the  last  topic.  .  Before  dismissing  this  inquiry  of  1873,  I  will 
refer  to  a  few  illustrative  facts  which  this  new  courage  for  re- 
trenchment brought  to  light.  They  show  what  sums  members  of 
Parliament  had  been  willing  to  vote,  if  only  their  favorites  were 
retained  in  the  public  service.  There  was  an  old  office  desig- 
nated as  "  Patentee  of  Bankrupts,"  which  had  many  years  ago 
ceased  to  have  more  than  the  merest  nominal  existence  ;  yet  the 
persons  holding  or  pensioned  for  it,  and  doing  nothing  what- 
ever, appear  to  have  received  altogether  nearly  $2,500,000, 
and  there  was  being  expended,  on  account  of  it,  the  sum  of 
$60,000  a  year  of  the  public  money. 

Clerks  of  assize  were  shown  to  be  drawing  salaries  at  the  rate 
of  S2500  annually,  and  yet  not  serving  the  public  more  than 
twenty-five  days  in  the  year.  There  were  cases  brought  to 
light  of  the  same  person  holding  several  offices,  and  very  sus- 
picious examples  of  nepotism  and  extravagance  on  the  j^art 
of  high  officials.  The  Treasury  had  been  compelled,  during 
the  last  year,  to  rebuke  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  by  letter  for 
giving  clerkships  to  his  son  and  hi^  nephew,  and  it  was  done 
in  strong  and  plain  terms.  Even  the  Lord  Chancellor  had  to 
make  an  explanation  in  writing  ;  his  secretary  having  been 
receiving  a  salary  of  $6000  a  year,  and  the  clerk  of  the  secre- 
tary a  salary  of  $2000  a  year  !  The  committee  were  also  very 
free  in  their  raillery  and  scrutiny  in  regard  to  purse  bearers, 
porters  of  the  great  seal,  court-keepers,  ceremonial  ushers  and 
other  needless  or  overpaid  officials,  which  the  vicious  patronage 
system  had  allowed  to  survive  from  the  royal  times  of  old. 
The  overhauling  of  patronage,  in  the  hands  of  judges  of  the 
higher  courts,  was  as  severe  as  it  was  needful.  It  was  shown 
that  certain  registrars,  being  part  of  the  old  patronage  of  the 
Chief  Justices  of  the  King's  Bench  and  Common  Pleas,  had 
no  duties  whatever,  the  whole  work  being  done  by  deputy 
registrars  ;   yet  it  would  appear  that  the  registrars  for  the 


242  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

county  of  Middlesex  alone  liad  been  collecting  fees  at  the  rate 
of  from  $10,000  to  $15,000  a  year.  But  the  bankrupt  court 
was  the  great  headquarters  of  sinecurists.  The  annual  cost  of 
the  court  was  shown  to  be  $710,000  ;  of  which  $280,000  was 
being  paid  for  the  services  of  officers  no  longer  performing 
any  duty  whatever  ! 

I  can  spare  no  more  space  for  such  examples.  But  the  fol- 
lowing, from  the  evidence  of  the  permanent  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  is  worthy  of  quotation  :  "  Under  competition,  you 
have  no  patronage,  and  there  is  therefore  no  motive  to  increase 
establishments  beyond  the  strength  which  is  required  for  the 
work  which  they  have  to  do  ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  a  very 
strong  motive  in  the  departments  themselves  to  keep  the  es- 
tablishment down,  so  as  to  have  the  credit  of  economical  esti- 
mates. "  '  Of  which  I  may  add  this  practical  illustration  from 
the  same  report — viz.,  that,  in  1853  (before  competition  was  in- 
troduced), the  customs  service  cost  $5,250,000,  in  1868  it  cost 
only  $4,950,000,  and  in  18Y2  only  $4,600,000.  There  is  one 
more  important  consideration  connected  with  this  report  to 
which  I  must  refer.  The  thorough  and  fearless  scrutiny  of 
the  committee  extended  over  several  months  and  into  every 
office,  without  respect  of  station,  high  or  low — a  scrutiny  that 
brought  the  head  of  the  Treasury  and  the  Lord  Chancellor  to 
their  bar,  not  less  than  the  humblest  clerks  and  doorkeepers 
— a  scrutiny  which  invited  and  received  the  complaints  of 
every  discharged  or  discontented  official  who  chose  to  appear 
or  to  write — and  yet  such  a  scrutiny  did  not,  so  far  as  I  can 
discover,  disclose  a  single  instance  of  peculation  or  fraud,  nor 
was  there  any  evidence  or  charge  that  illicit  gains  or  corruption 
(except  in  the  survival  of  the  abuses  of  the  old  system  as  illus- 
trated in  the  examples  I  have  given)  anywhere  existed  or 
were  hj  anybody  helieved  to  exist  in  the  public  service.  And 
I  am  unable  to  find  any  other  explanation  of  a  condition  of 
things  so  striking,  except  selections  and  j^romotions  based  on 
merit,  a  tenure  not  disturbed  for  political  reasons,  retiring 
allowances,  and  the  various  methods  to  which  I  have  adverted 
for  promoting  self-respect  and  respect  for  the  government  on 

»  Third  Report  1873.     Answer  31 TG. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN".  243 

the  part  of  those  in  its  service.  It  is  only  when  we  contem- 
plate tlie  full  significance  of  such  freedom  from  even  the  sus- 
picion of  corruption  or  dishonesty,  and  compare  it  with  the  per- 
vading venality  and  malversation  which  had  prevailedin  earlier 
generations,  that  we  are  able  to  comprehend  the  scope  and  the 
blessing  of  administrative  reform  in  Great  Britain.  We  then 
feel  the  force  of  the  reasons  which  have  called  her  greatest 
statesmen  to  the  work  and  made  it  the  pride  and  the  safety  of 
her  people. 


CHAPTEK  XXY. 

THE  EXECUTIVE   INVESTIGATION   OF    1874. 

Relates  to  department  details. — Better  organization. — No  change  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  new  system. — Restrictions  removed. — Ai-istocratic  division 
into  two  classes  disapproved. — Open  competition  approved  and  ex- 
tended. 

The  reasons  which  gave  Parliament  tlie  courage  and  inde- 
pendence needed  to  probe  abuses  in  1873  had  a  similar  effect 
upon  executive  officers.  Most  of  those  who  had  secured  places 
by  their  favor  had  received  promotion  before  1874,  and  such 
officers  had  no  personal  interest  in  screening  those  who  had 
obtained  places  by  open  competition,  l^o  one,  I  think,  can 
peruse  the  series  of  stern  and  searching  examinations  into  the 
English  Civil  Service,  made  between  1860  and  1874,  without 
feeling  that  a  new  and  fearless  spirit  in  harmony  with  the 
higher  sentiment  of  the  nation  has  come  over  official  life. 
The  inquiries  made  by  the  commission  of  1874,  unlike  those 
before  considered,  were  not  ordered  by  Parliament,  but  by  the 
executive.  The  commission  consisted  of  nine  persons  (two 
being  members  of  Parliament),  of  whom  the  Right  Honorable 
Lyon  Playfair  (Postmaster-General  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  last  cab- 
inet) was  chairman.  The  main  aims  of  the  investigation  seemed 
to  have  been  to  review  the  method  of  selecting  civil  servants, 
especially  in  reference  to  its  operation  within  the  departments  ; 
to  grade  the  service  so  as  to  make  compensation  and  labor  more 
equable  ;  to  provide  a  method  of  transfer  of  officers  from  one 
office  to  another,  and  to  arrange  for  doing  the  lower  grade  of 
public  work  through  less  expensive  clerks.  The  inquiry 
ranged  over  almost  the  whole  iield  of  civil  service,  and  three 
elaborate  reports  were  made.  Even  a  summary  of  the  topics 
and  recommendations  would  carry  me  far  beyond  reasonable 
limits.     It  affords  a  still  more  striking  illustration  than  any  I 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  245 

have  referred  to  of  the  extent  to  which  the  British  Government 
has  sought  to  secure  efficiency  and  economy  in  the  public  ser- 
vice by  introducing  just  and  scientific  methods. 

It  was  not  proposed  to  interfere  with  the  principle  of  open 
competition  or  with  any  of  the  essential  features  of  the  merit 
system  /  and  in  fact  they  were  not  only  strengthened  and  ex- 
tended, but  were  relieved  of  the  encumbering  debris  of  the  old 
system  as  well  as  of  some  needless  restrictions.  Nor,  in  the 
immense  mass  of  testimony  taken  in  1874  and  18T5,  any  more 
than  in  that  taken  in  1873,  can  I  find  anything  tending  to 
show  personal  corruption  on  the  part  of  any  officer,  or  any 
feeling  that  such  corruption  existed  in  the  lyiiblic  service. 
There  is  no  lack  of  complaint  about  inadequate  salaries,  too 
hard  work,  too  exacting  regulations,  slow  promotion,  and  unfair 
distribution  of  labor  and  of  honors  ;  but  everywhere  faith  in  offi- 
cial integrity  and  pride  in  being  connected  with  the  public  ser- 
vice. From  the  numerous  topics  that  will  be  likely  to  command 
our  attention,  wherever  we  shall  make  a  thorough  study  of  the 
condition  of  good  civil  administration,  I  select  but  two  as 
especially  calling  for  notice  here.  The  public  opinion  that 
broke  through  patronage  and  favoritism  had  been  too  radical 
and  exacting,  in  its  hour  of  victory,  to  impose  wise  condi- 
tions upon  its  great  demand  that  all  places  should  be  won  by  / 
merit  tested  in  open  competition.  It  was  consequently  insisted 
that  he  who  should  stand  highest  in  the  competition  should 
have  the  first  vacancy,  if  indeed  the  competition  was  not  di- 
rectly for  a  single  vacancy.  And  such  had  been  substantially 
the  practice  ;  a  practice  that  gave  but  the  smallest  discretion 
to  the  appointing  power,  and  hence  afforded  less  ojjportunity 
than  was  desirable  for  giving  to  those  having  a  high  average, 
yet  varying  qualifications,  the  particular  places  for  which  theyj 
were  best  fitted.  This  was  an  inconvenient  restriction  need- 
lessly imposed,  and  was  not  involved  in  the  princiijle  of  com- 
petition. In  some  cases  it  too  much  curtailed  a  salutary  official 
liberty  of  choice.  Through  the  commission  of  1874,  this  un- 
due restriction  was  removed  ;  and  provision  was  made  that  the 
appointments  (always  as  heretofore  to  be  made  to  the  lowest 
grade)  should  be  made  from  among  several  of  those  highest  in 
the  competition  ;  the  liberty  of  choice,  as  to  the  several  officers, 


246  CIVIL   SERVICE   m   great   BRITAIN. 

always  being  large  enough  to  allow  the  most  appro j)riate  talent 
and  attainments  being  chosen  for  the  particular  place  to  be 
filled,  but  not  so  large  as  to  give  room  for  official  favoritism. 
It  is  plain  that  the  fit  range  of  choice,  in  this  regard,  may  well 
be  greater  for  some  places  tlian  for  others,  according  to  the 
jjeculiarity  of  capacity  needed,  and  that  the  subject  is  one  for 
detailed  provision  in  the  rules.  The  other  leading  subject 
dealt  with  by  the  committee  was  that  of  the  aristocratic  di- 
vision of  those  in  the  public  service  into  two  classes.  The 
principle  of  free,  open  competition  is  repugnant  to  that  distinc- 
tion. The  division  was  also  as  objectionable  by  reason  of  its 
effect  upon  economy,  convenience,  and  good  feeling,  in  the 
public  service,  as  it  was  on  the  score  of  justice  and  principle. 
Those  of  the  first  class  had  higher  salaries,  performed  higher 
work,  and  they  claimed  social  precedence  ;  though  they  might 
be  morally  and  intellectually  inferior  to  those  of  the  second 
class.  Jealousy  and  antagonism,  and  a  sense  of  injustice  on 
the  part  of  the  lower  class,  were  the  natural  results.  Haughty, 
aristocratic  officials  favored  Class  1.,  and  used  their  influence 
to  crowd  the  service  with  that  class,  and  to  depress  Class  II., 
whereby  needless  expense  for  salaries  w^as  incurred.  It  was 
made  .very  difficult  to  get  from  tlie  lower  class  to  the  higher. 
When  humble  young  men  of  wortli  had  won  their  way  to  the 
service,  they  found,  to  their  disgust,  that  they  Vere  admitted 
to  hardly  half  of  it,  and  that  the  lower  half,  on  which  a  higlier 
grade  looked  down  frowningly.  They  were  in  the  relation  of 
English  attorneys  to  barristers,  of  Commons  to  Lords.  In 
accordance  with  the  scheme  of  the  report  of  1874,  tlie  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  two  classes  has  been  substantially 
opened  to  merit,  and  the  division  itselfjrnust_soon,  I  think, 
cease  to  exist.  But  the  idea  of  classes  is  too  deep  in  the  Eng- 
lish mind  to  allow  its  speedy  suppression  in  official  circles, 
and  it  will  doubtless  survive  its  application  to  practice. 

There  is  another  view  of  this  series  of  investigations,  from 
1853  to  1876,  well  worthy  of  notice  ;  as  it  indicates  a  continued 
growth  of  the  reforming  sentiment.  With  departments  of 
government  as  with  individuals,  it  is  far  easier  to  criticise 
others  than  to  institute  self -reform.  An  officer  who  tlioroughly 
inquires  into  and  exposes  the  defects  allowed  by  himself  has 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  247 

taken  one  of  the  most  difficult  steps  in  public  duty.     The  in- 
quiry of  1853  was,  in  substance,  an  inquiry  by  the  ,executive 
into  usurpations  and  shortcomings  of  members  of  Parliament  ; 
taking  care  to  say  only  the  least  about  the  real  object.     The 
intermediate    investigations   were   made   by  Parliament  into 
executive  administration  ;  while  those  ordered  in  1874  were  ( 
made  by  the  executive  into  the  detailed  abuses  in  its  own  ad-  (j 
ministration.     And  by  this  time  the  independent  sentiment  of 
the  country  had  become  so  strong  that  I  find  no  evidence  that 
the  leaders  of  either  party  ventured  to  interpose  any  objections  i 
to  the  most  complete  exposure  of  abuses,  or  to  the  large  re-   \ 
duction  of  expenses  effected.     Indeed,  the  time  seemed  to  be 
past  when  either  party  could  hope  to  gain  as  much  through 
the  influence  of  its  friends  in  subordinate  stations  as  through  a 
reputation  for  favoring  an  honest  and  economical  execution  of 
the  laws. 


CHAPTER  XXYI. 

THE   EESIJLTS    OF   THE   MERIT    SYSTEM   BASED   OX   OPEN    COMPE- 
TITION  IN    BKITISII    INDIA. 

Official  opinions  between  1853  and  1875. — Law  of  1860  requiring  examina- 
tions before  Civil  Service  Commission. — Full  investigation  ordered  in  1875. 
— The  investigation  made. — The  new  system  approved. — Better  men  ob- 
tained.— Better  administration. — Great  difficulties  overcome. — Open  com- 
petition free  to  all  British  subjects,  now  the  door  of  entrance  to  the  Indian 
service. 

It  lias  already  been  shown  that,  after  many  experiments, 
with  a  view  to  render  favoritism  and  patronage  tolerable  in 
India,  it  had  been  found  necessary  to  abolish  both  in  1853  and 
to  substitute  the  Merit  System  founded  on  open  competition. 
The  changes  being  novel,  were  of  course  regarded  as  wholly 
tentative,  and  they  were  carefully  watched  by  both  the  friends 
and  enemies  of  the  new  system.  The  lirst  official  inquiry  as  to 
its  effects  was  made  in  1863,  with  these  results  officially  pro- 
mulgated :  "  It  is  enough  to  observe  that  the  general  results 
of  the  inquiry  were  in  favor  of  the  system,  so  far  as  it  had 
been  then  developed  ;  and  that  this  favorable  judgment  was 
adopted  and  confirmed,  somewhat  later,  by  the  Government 
of  India,  in  a  dispatch  dated  May  5th,  1866.".  .  .  The 
results  of  the  inquiry  instituted  by  the  Government  of  India 
were  thus  summarized  by  the  Governor-General,  Lord  Law- 
rence, one  of  the  ablest  administrators  ever  at  the  head  of 
Indian  affairs,  in  a  dispatch  dated  May  5th,  1 866  :  ' '  We  would 
observe  that,  as  the  civil  servants  who  were  at  first  appointed 
under  the  system  of  competitive  examinations  have  not  as  yet 
been  ten  years  in  India,  and  as  consequently  the  great  majority 
of  the  servants  so  appointed  are  still  holding  very  subordinate 
positions  in  the  service,  it  would,  in  our  oj^inion,  be  prema- 
ture to  pronounce,  conclusively,  whether  or  not  the  civil  ser- 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN".  249 

vice  lias,  on  the  wliole,  been  improved  by  tlie  present  system. 
We  are  inclined,  however,  to  believe  that  it  has,  and  it  may 
at  least,  we  think,  be  confidently  affirmed  that  the  present  sys- 
tem is  effective  to  exclude  great  inefficiency,  which  undoubt- 
edly was  not  excluded  under  the  old  system  ;  and  also  that  the 
young  men  who  enter  the  service  under  the  present  system 
are,  as  a  rale,  more  highly  educated  than  those  who  found 
admittance  under  the  former  system. "  *  As  these  reports  only 
relate  to  the  practical  effects  of  the  new  system  in  India, 
nothing  is  said  in  them  of  the  check  it  put  to  the  intrigue, 
and  favoritism  in  connection  with  nominations  which  it  ar- 
rested, in  England.  I  need  not  enter  into  details  on  that  sub- 
ject ;  for  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  advantages  of  the  new 
system  were  so  early  appreciated  in  England  that  in  1859-60 
it  was  provided  by  statute  '^  ' '  that  no  candidate  shall  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  service  in  India  .  .  .  without  a  certificate  from 
the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  of  examination  by  them." 
.  .  .  These  examinations  were  competitive.  It  is  declared 
in  the  before  cited.  Parliamentary  Report  made  in  I860,' 
that  the  competitive  examinations  for  the  India  service  are 
entirely  open  and  free,  ^o  one  nominates  those  to  be  exam- 
ined, but  they  propose  themselves.  The  chairman  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  uses  this  language  :  "  The  Minister  for 
India  has  no  knowledge  .with  regard  to  these  candidates  until 
we  return  to  him  the  list  of  those  who  have  passed  us,  nor 
does  he  in  any  way  interfere  in  regard  to  that  competition."  * 
The  new  system,  therefore,  completely  excluded  all  patronage, 
favoritism,  threats,  and  solicitation;  success  in  competition  alone 
giving  a  chance  for  a  place  in  the  service.  He  who  wished  to  test 
his  merits  by  competition  could  do  so  without  asking  permission 
from  anybody.  And  this  was  not  only  trae  of  all  British  sub- 
jects proper,  but  of  the  natives  of  India  as  well,  of  whatever 
race,  caste,  or  religion  they  might  be.  All  are  allowed  to  com- 
pete ahke.     Among  the  754  who  first  won  places  by  competi- 

'  Report  of  Commission  of  Inquiry  of  1874,  as  to  selections,  etc.,  for 
Civil  Service  of  India,  pp.  12,  19,  and  20. 
»  21st  and  22d  Vict.,  chap.  106,  §  32. 

*  Report  of  1860,  p.  328. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  328. 


250  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

tion,  tliere  were  natives  of  France,  Canada,  Brazil,  and  of  the 
United  States.  How  little  the  contest  favored  mere  college 
learning  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  of  the  forty  who  won  the 
highest  places,  in  the  competition  of  1874,  thirty  had  gained 
their  education  in  the  public  schools.  And  in  practice 
open  competition  was  made  as  republican  and  democratic  as 
it  is  in  theory.  It  has  been  one  of  the  signiiicant  results  that 
intelligent  and  docile  Hindoos  and  Parsees  have,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, crowded  the  stolid  and  domineering  Moslems  out  of  the 
public  service  of  India.  Thus  the  experiment  was  continued 
on  trial  until  1875,  when  it  was  thought  that,  as  more  than 
twenty  years  had  elapsed  since  it  was  commenced,  it  was  time 
for  a  thorough  investigation  of  its  general  effects.  It  had  en- 
countered opposition  not  only  from  officers  who  had  long  been 
accustomed  to  the  old  system,  but  also  from  those  who  have  a 
great  love  of  unlimited,  official  authority.  I  have  cited  Mr. 
Robert  Lowe's  testimony  that  such  officials  always  oppose  com- 
petition. It  was  also  opposed  by  a  few  very  cautious  and  con- 
scientious persons,  who  feared  the  results  of  a  change  so 
radical  and  unexampled.  In  1875,  the  Secretary  for  India 
ordered  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service. 
Lord  Northbrook  (the  late  Yiceroy)  and  Lord  Napier  were 
among  the  eight  eminent  persons  by  v/hom  it  was  conducted. 
Their  report  was  unanimous  in  its  favor,  and,  with  the  evidence 
taken,  is  contained  in  Parliamentary^lue  Book,  issued  in  1876, 
from  which  I  shall  quote.  The  Yiceroy  begins  his  opinion  by 
declaring  that  ' '  there  are  few  subjects,  connected  with  the 
Government  of  India,  of  more  importance  than  the  manner  in 
which  candidates  for  the  civil  service  should  be  selected  and 
the  selected  candidates  should  be  trained  for  service  in  India." 
In  1855,  Lord  Ellenborough  declared,  as  President  of  the 
India  Board,  "  that  the  prosperity  and  peace  of  India  depend 
upon  the  characters  of  those  who  goverji."  This  Blue  Book 
contains  the  elaborate  opinions  of  one  hundred  and  one  of  the 
most  experienced  administrators  in  India,  ranging  from  the  dis- 
tinguished Sir  II.  Maine  down  to  those  most  worthy  to  be  con- 
sulted in  the  lowest  class  of  the  service  ;  and  those  from  officers 
of  position  are  marked  by  an  ability  and  elevation  of  tone 
which  goes  far  to  enable  one  to  understand  how  it  is  possible 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  2ol 

for  SO  few,  of  a  foreign  race,  to  hold  the  millions  of  India  in 
peaceful  subjection  and  to  carry  on  such  vast  public  works 
with  so  much  vigor  and  so  little  corruption.  I  should  have  to 
go  beyond  all  reasonable  limits,  if  I  should  attempt  more  than 
to  state  the  conclusions  reached  upon  the  few  decisive  points 
of  the  great  experiment.  All  that  relates  to  such  questions  as 
the  proper  age  for  entering  and  leaving  public  service,  to  the 
best  subjects  and  methods  of  education,  to  retiring  allowances, 
to  transfers  and  promotions  in  the  service,  to  the  best  measure 
of  official  discretion,  to  the  peculiar  duties  of  judges,  fiscal 
officers  and  governors,  to  the  best  plan  of  dealing  with  ques- 
tions of  caste,  nationality,  and  othei*s  of  similar  kind,  I  must 
therefore  pass  over  without  further  notice,  much  as  the  study  of 
such  details  has  improved  the  Indian  service,  and  sadly  as  we 
have  neglected  such  matters.  What  then  was  the  judgment 
passed  upon  the  merit  system  as  a  whole  ?  Was  the  method 
of  selection  by  open  competition  and  of  promotion  with  refer- 
ence to  merit,  which  were  the  decisive  issues,  approved  or 
condemned  ?  The  report  of  the  Commission  of  1875  gives  a 
clear  and  decisive  answer  to  these  questions.  The  Commission- 
ers not  only  had  before  them  those  one  hundred  and  one  elabo- 
rate written  opinions — coming  from  every  division  and  grade  of 
the  service — presidents,  governors,  judges,  fiscal  officers,  en- 
gineers, school  and  college  officers,  from  Bsngal,  Madras, 
Bombay,  and  every  part  of  India,  as  well  as  from  Assam, 
Berar,  and  Ceylon,  but  they  inspected  records,  conferred 
with  leading  officers,  and  examined  into  the  practical  work- 
ing of  the  administration.  Their  final  and  unajiimous  re- 
port, made  in  September,  1875,  uses  this  language  :  "  We 
desire  to  call  your  lordship's  particular  attention  to  the  ability 
and  good  sense  of  the  replies  which  we  have  received,  and 
which  form  the  enclosures  of  this  despatch.  .  .  .  With  regard 
to  the  general  result  of  free  competition  for  the  Indian  Civil 
Service,  we  consider  that  the  experience  which  has  been 
gained  since  the  Government  of  India  expressed  their  opinion, 
in  despatch  No  25  (public),  of  the  5tli  of  May,  18G6 — that  the 
result  was  satisfactory — amply  confirms  the  favorable  judg- 
ment then  expressed.  In  our  opinion  the  civil  service  is  filled  by 
officers  of  merit  and  ability,  and  we  are  confident  that  they  will 


252  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

be  found  fully  competent  to  discharge  the  duties  which  they 
have  to  perform,  and  to  supply  statesinen  and  administrators 
of  high  distinction  in  the  different  branches  of  the  administra- 
tion. .  .  ."'  In  an  official  communication  subsequently  made 
to  the  Secretary  for  India,  the  Viceroy  says  :  ' '  As  regards  the 
maintenance  of  free  competition,  I  do  not  perceive  that  it  has 
been  challenged  by  any  high  authority,  and  I  do  not  think  it 
necssary  to  discuss  the  subject.  .  .  . "  ^ 

And  as  an  illustration  of  the  spirit  in  which  open  compe- 
tition had  been  adopted,  and  as  some  evidence  of  the  justness  of 
the  opinion  I  have  expressed,  that  it  is  liberal  and  republican 
rather  than  royal  or  aristocratic  in  tendency,  I  may  quote  this 
further  passage  from  the  Viceroy's  instructions  : 

"  In  the  first  place,  I  should  regret  that  any  man  should  be  de- 
barred from  entrance  to  the  Indian  Civil  Service  who  possessed  such 
energy  and  ability  as  to  enable  him  in  a  humble  position  of  life  to 
succeed  at  the  competitive  examination.  Such  a  man  it  would  be  to 
the  advantage  of  India  that  he  should  form  one  of  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice.    .     .     ."  ' 

It  is  certainly  significant  of  the  great  changes  wrought  in 
public  opinion,  that  the  head  of  the  Government  in  India, 
the  Viceroy  of  the  most  aristocratic  monarchy  in  the  world, 
should  thus  especially  commend  that  effect  of  the  new  system 
which  so  favors  the  opportunities  of  humble  life  ;^  nor  does 
it  take  from  this  significance  when  Lord  Salisbury,  the  head 
of  Indian  affairs  in  England,  and  among  the  most  aristocratic 
of  British  noblemen,  approves  both  the  communication  and 
the  rejiort.  The  explanation  of  course  is  that  British  states- 
men have  long  since  found  that  common  justice  and  the  ex- 
clusion of  partisan  tests,  in  selecting  civil  servants,  are  essential 
for  securing  those  most  useful,  and  they  have  had  patriotism 
and  independence  enough  to  act  upon  their  convictions  of  duty, 
even  in  a  foreign  province.  These  declarations  aj)pear  not 
to  have  been  mere  professions,  for  in  the  final  order,  made  in 

'  Report,  p.  53.  »  Ibid.,  p.  224.  '  Ibid.,  p.  230. 

■*  In  the  same  spirit  the  late  changes  in  the  army  have  abolished  the  old 
custom  of  enlisting  only  high-caste  Hindoos,  and  those  of  the  Imcest  caste 
are  rather  preferred. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GKEAT  BRITAIN.  253 

1876,  for  the  permanent  establishment  of  open  competition,  as 
the  sole  means  of  entry  to  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  it  is  pro- 
vided that  during  the  two  years  of  special  study,  which  areZ»- 
to  follow  success  in  the  competition,  the  sum  of  $750  a  yeari|;l 
is  to  be  paid  to  each  successful  competitor,  thereby  enabling 
the  children  of  the  poor  to  go  on  with  their  preparation  for  the 
public  service. ' 

Lord  Salisbury  gave  his  opinion  in  his  final  instructions  to 
the  Viceroy  and  Council  of  India,  in  this  language  : ' 

"  With  respect  to  the  principle  of  competition  itself,  the  evidence 
you  have  collected  sufficiently  shows  that  it  cannot  be  disturbed 
without  injury  to  the  public  service.  The  expressions  of  opinion 
which  I  have  received  from  competent  judges  in  England  led  me  to 
the  same  conclusion.  Of  its  success,  as  a  mode  of  selecting  persons 
fit  to  serve  in  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  there  seems  to  be  no  reason- 
able doubt." 

Not  only  was  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  unanimous,  and 
those  responsible  for  administration  convinced  that  the  merit 
system  based  on  open  competition  was  the  best  ever  tried,  but 
its  avowed  enemies  become  converted.  A  member  of  the 
Government  of  India,  who  had  been  hostile  to  competition, 
uses  this  language  in  his  official  opinion  : 

"  It  is  needless  to  state  views  in  regard  to  the  competitive  system, 
as  compared  with  that  of  nomination,  because  it  is  clear,  in  the 
present  state  of  public  feeling,  it  is  out  of  all  probability  that  compe- 
tition could  be  abandoned  ;  and,  moreover,  /  confess^  after  careful 
perusal  of  these  papers,  I  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that,  on  the  whole, 
it  has  been  more  sucessful  than  I  for  one  ever  expected  it  to  be.   .   .   . ' " 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  was  that  in  1876,  open 
competition,  in  which  those  of  every  race,  religion,  caste, 
color,  or  party  could  freely  participate,  on  the  same  terms, 
became  the  established  and  sole  means  of  entering  the  Civil 
Service  of  India.  To  this  there  is,  of  course,  the  exception  of 
the  Viceroy,  and  of  any  other  officers  who  may  be  sent  to  guide 
the  general  policy  of  the  Indian  Government.  Original  ad- 
mission is  to  the  lower  grade  of  the  service,  and  the  higlier 

'  Lord  Salisbury's  Order,  Report,  p.  323. 
'  Report,  p.  333.  »  Ibid.,  p.  3ia 

17 


254  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

places  (save  tlie  very  few  exceptions  just  noted)  are  filled  by 
promotions  based  on  merit  and  experience  in  the  subordinate 
service.  Special  study  for  two  years  after  selection  by  com- 
petition, and  before  entering  upon  practical  duties,  is  made 
necessary  by  reason  of  the  considerable  knowledge  of  local 
laws,  languages,  and  institutions  which  are  indispensable  in 
the  public  service  of  India.  The  same  rule,  in  that  respect, 
had  existed  when  selections  were  made  under  the  old  system. 

The  world  knows  full  well  what  oppression  and  extortion 
marked  the  early  years  of  British  rule  in  India.  The  original 
system  was  one  of  pillage  and  spoils.  I  have  now  given  the 
merest  outline  of  the  failure  of  the  partisan  system  (which 
succeeded  the  spoils  system)  and  of  the  method  of  patronage 
in  the  hands  of  members  of  the  Indian  Board,  supplemented 
by  a  college  course,  which  stand  between  the  old  order  of 
things  and  the  new.  We  have  reached  the  point  where  it  is 
demonstrated,  by  the  most  ample  experience,  that  the  pros- 
perity and  safety  of  England  and  India  alike  require  tliat  places 
in  the  public  service  of  the  latter  sliall  depend  neither  upon 
the  favor  of  any  party,  any  cabinet,  any  great  officer,  any 
board  of  control,  nor  upon  anything  other  than  the  personal 
merit  of  the  applicant,  tested  by  a  standard,  public,  uniform, 
and  just.  If  I  could  afford  the  space,  I  might  call  attention 
to  particular  facts  showing  that  competition  had  given  not 
merely  more  bright  men  of  learning,  but  men  with  physical 
systems  as  strong,  with  characters  quite  as  high,  with  j)ractical, 
administrative  capacity  not  less,  to  say  the  least,  than  had 
come  into  the  service  under  any  other  sj^stem.  But  no  evi- 
dence I  could  present  would  perhaps  be  so  satisfactory  or  con- 
clusive as  the  official  opinions  already  quoted. 

Another  aspect  of  the  subject,  however,  may  well  arrest  our 
attention  for  a  moment.  History,  perhaj)s,  afEords  no  example 
so  remarkable  as  that  of  British  India  of  the  efficiency  and 
power  of  able  and  upright  officers  and  good  methods  in  admin- 
istration to  lead  on  a  people  in  order  and  prosperity  and  to 
hold  them  in  subjection  while  raising  their  civilization. '     The 

*  "No  thoughtful  person  can  read  what  General  Upton  says  of  the  firm 
but  beneficent  rule  of  England  in  India,  without  earnestly  wishing  to  see 
that  rule  extended  over  all  of  Southern  Asia. " — International  Review,  July, 
1878,  p.  57. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  255 

civil  servants  of  Great  Britain  in  India  are  but  a  little  band 
of  a  few  thousands,  scattered  over  a  vast  empire,  holding  in 
obedience  nearly  one  hundred  and  ninety  millions  of  people 
of  different  races,  castes,  and  religions.  These  races  are  not 
wanting  in  ability  or  learning,  and  they  are  proud,  bigoted, 
and  warlike.  They  have  many  languages,  and  laws  and  cus- 
toms older  and  more  numerous  and  complicated  than  any 
other  people.  Nowhere  is  the  peril  or  the  responsibility  of 
government  greater.  All  the  officers  are  remote  from  the  seat 
of  ultimate  responsibihty,  and  many  of  them  are  widely  sepa- 
rated from  each  other  ;  so  that  discretion,  firmness,  practical 
resources,  and  high  administrative  ability  are  more  than  any- 
where else  indispensable  and  invaluable.  It  had  been  thought 
by  many  that  even  if  competition  would  secure  bright  men  and 
perhaps  good  theorists,  it  would  fail  to  secure  practical  men, 
sagacious  administratoi-s,  competent  to  command  and  to  lead. 
It  is  worthy  of  notice,  therefore,  that  its  first  great  trial  and 
success  seems  to  demonstrate  the  incorrectness  of  that  A^iew. 
It  is  not  any  longer  ability  to  lead  an  army  and  a  body  of  civil 
tyrants,  in  enforcing  measures  of  oppression  and  exaction,  that 
is  needed  in  India,  but  ability  to  collect  and  expend  a  revenue 
as  large  as  that  of  any  but  a  few  of  the  greatest  nations  of  the 
world  ;  ability  to  take  supervision  of  the  construction  and 
management  of  railways,  roads,  public  drainage,  irrigation, 
hospitals,  and  other  works  of  internal  improvement  of  great 
magnitude  ;  ability  to  sustain  a  judicial  administration  demand- 
ing more  learning,  patience,  and  high  sense  of  justice  than  any 
that  ever  existed  in  any  other  country.  N^or  should  it  be  for- 
gotten that  whatever  places  the  merit  system  has  thus  opened 
to  worth  and  capacity  have  been  taken  from  the  perquisites 
and  the  spoils  of  office  and  politics.  Where,  before,  governors, 
judges,  directors,  members  of  Parliament,  heads  of  offices  or 
great  noblemen  or  party  leaders,  could,  at  their  arbitrary  will, 
say  to  one,  you  can  enter,  and  to  another,  you  cannot  enter, 
the  public  service  of  India,  they  must  now  accept  some  one 
from  among  the  most  meritorious  in  the  competition,  even  if 
he  be  the  child  of  a  Hindoo  of  the  lowest  caste,  or  the  orphan 
of  a  British  sailor.  We  may  well  believe,  I  think,  that  haughty 
Indian  officers  long    accustomed  to  patronage  and  arbitrary 


256  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN". 

power,  tliat  tlie  leaders  of  politics  and  tlie  great  aristocratic 
families,  who,  for  more  than  a  century,  liad  found  tlie  Indian 
service  a  convenient  field  for  rewarding  their  relations  and  de- 
j)endents,  did  not  submit  to  such  sacrifices  as  the  new  system 
called  for,  until  the  defence  of  the  old  was  no  longer  possible 
and  the  safety  of  the  empire  was  seen  to  be  in  peril.  The 
first  advocates  of  the  new  system  were,  in  the  eyes  of  such 
ofiicials,  not  only  theorists  but  meddlers.  'No  five  Senators  or 
Territorial  Governors,  with  us,  have  ever,  altogether,  had  a 
patronage  at  all  comparable  with  that  formerly  enjoyed  by  the 
Queen's  chief  officer  in  Madras,  Bengal,  or  other  great  pres- 
idency, to  say  nothing  of  that  of  the  Viceroy  himself.  There 
is  one  of  the  many  of  dependent  princes  even  who  has  a  yearly 
reveime  of  $3,300,000.  The  official  service  and  the  public 
affairs  of  all  our  territories  united  are  but  small  compared  with 
those  of  a  single  presidency  in  India.  In  any  view,  the  late 
changes  there  must  be  regarded  as  a  remarkable  and  noble 
triumph  of  justice  and  patriotism  over  all  that  was  selfish, 
venal,  and  partisan  in  official  life.  Like  our  late  constitutional 
amendments,  they  established  equality,  justice,  and  liberty,  ir- 
respective of  race,  color,  religion,  or  nativity.  They  gave  to 
the  humblest  Hindoo  and  Parsee  the  same  right,  tliat  they  al- 
lowed to  the  favorite  of  the  greatest  family  or  of  the  strongest 
party,  to  enter  the  public  service,  both  civil  and  military  * — 
upon  the  basis  of  their  character  and  capacity  as  men,  what- 
ever views  of  politics  or  religion  they  might  liold — a  right  not 
practically  enjoyed  in  this  generation  in  this  boasted  land  of 
freedom.  The  contrast  of  the  mild  and  fair  spirit  of  this 
system,  with  the  rapacity  and  injustice  wliich  marked  the  pol- 
icy of  Clive  and  Hastings,  presents  a  significant  illustration 
of  the  vast  political  changes  of  a  century.  If  we  are  to  look 
beyond  patriotism  for  any  part  of  the  general  suj^port  the 
reform  has  received  in  the  high  official  circles  of  India,  we 
might,  perhaps,  find  it  in  the  exemption  it  has  brought  from 
the  wearisome  solicitation  of  office  seekers,  from  the  vexatious 
adjustments  of   the  rival   claims  of   patronage,  from  unjust 

'  Native  ofBcers  of  low  caste  liave  often  been  promoted,  who  were  yet 
forced,  when  off  duty,  to  give  precedence  to  common  soldiers  of  the  Brah- 
min class. 


CIVIL  SEKVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  257 

charges  of  partiality,  from  the  enmity  of  a  hundred  persons  dis- 
appointed for  every  one  gratified  with  an  oflice — to  all  which 
tlie  records  bear  evidence. 

"Wlien  we  consider  the  many  thousands  of  miles  of  railroads 
under  government  charge,  the  extensive  public  works  for 
irrigation,  for  drainage,  for  land  and  water  transportation,  for 
sanitary  improvement,'  and  for  varied  forms  of  utility  or 
benevolence,  on  the  security  of  which  Englishmen  have  be- 
come the  holders  of  bonds  in  the  amount  of  more  than  $900,- 
000,000  ;  wlien  we  take  into  account  the  educational  system 
with  its  pecuhar  difiiculties  and  the  delicate  and  responsible  re- 
lations of  government  to  many  religions  ;  when  we  consider  the 
chances  innumerable  for  fraud  and  peculation  (if  our  army 
and  Indian  affairs  are  the  units  of  comparison)  that  must 
exist  in  the  equipment  and  supply,  and  in  connection  with 
hundreds  of  stations  and  posts,  of  an  army  of  more  than  250,  - 
000  men  distributed  over  a  vast  country  of  190,000,000  of 
people  ;  as  we  calculate  the  opportunities  of  cheating  and  mal- 
versation (if  tested  by  our  experience)  among  the  great  army 
of  ofiicials  required  to  collect  and  disburse  an  annual  revenue 
(in  great  part  internal)  of  $250,000,000,  in  a  remote  country 
and  among  an  alien  and  notoriously  cunning  and  deceptive 
race  ;  and  when  we  find  that  both  the  most  careful  researclies  of 
British  commissions  and  the  common  understanding  of  man- 
kind agree  in  considering  this  stupendous  administration  not 
merely  unsurpassed  in  justice  and  purity  among  all  instances  of 
foreign  domination,  but  in  itself  in  a  high  degree  economical 
and  honest,  and  generally  just '  (even  as  compared  with  the  do- 
mestic administration  of  the  leading  States),  we  must,  at  least, 

*  The  once  filthy  and  pestilential  city  of  Bombay,  with  all  its  nat- 
ural disadvantages  of  people  and  situation,  has,  through  good  sanitary  con- 
trol, come  to  have  a  death-rate  lower  than  that  of  Baltimore,  Richmond, 
or  New  Orleans. 

"  That  there  is  frequent  injustice  and  sometimes  corruption  and  oppres- 
sion among  those  innumerable  small  officials,  especially  among  the  lowest 
classes  of  justices,  mostly  native,  and  whose  sphere  of  duty  is  beyond 
the  possibility  of  direct  supervision  by  the  better  class  of  ofHcers,  can- 
not, I  think,  be  doubted.  Only  education  and  Christianity  can  remove 
such  evils.  There  are  over  190,000,000  of,  natives  directly  under  British 
rule,  to  which  over  48,000,000,  living  in  feudatory  States,  with  an  army  of 
nearly  303,030  men,  are  to  be  added.    India  has  only  121,147  persons  of 


258  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

I  think,  reach  the  conclusion  that  a  great  deal  depends  on  the 
mode  of  appointment  and  discipline  of  those  in  the  public  ser- 
vice, and  that  Great  Britain  has  not  bestowed  so  much  care 
upon  the  affairs  of  India  without  abundant  reward.  Xor  can 
we  feel  surprise  at  the  just  pride  of  British  statesmen,  in  the 
presence  of  so  noble  an  example  of  successful  administration, 
or  dispute  them  when  they  assert  that  "  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  no  other  State  has  shown  how  to  govern  territories  so 
extended  and  remote,  and  races  of  men  so  diverse  ;  giving  to 
her  own  kindred  colonies  the  widest  liberty,  and  ruhng  v/ith 
enlightened  equity  dependencies  unqualified  for  freedom."  ' 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  cite  the  opinions  of  a  competent 
and  impartial  observer ;  "^  and  he  has  found  that  the  merit 
system,  enforced  in  the  military  service,  has  been  as  salutary 
as  in  the  civil  service.  "In  no  country,"  he  says,  "is  the 
subordination  of  the  military  to  the  civil  authority  more 
clearly  defined.  .  .  .  All  the  officers  we  met  at  Delhi 
and  elsewhere,  in  India^  showed  a  capacity  and  confidence 
above  their  rank.  .  .  .  The  results  attained  in  India  are 
worthy  our  closest  study.  .  .  .  i^o  stranger  free,  from 
national  prejudice  can  visit  .  .  .  India  without  rejoicing 
that  England  controls  the  destiny  of  200,000,000  of  people  ; 
neither  can  he  observe  the  great  institutions  which  she  has 
founded  for  their  moral  and  physical  amelioration,  without 
hoping  that,  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  she  may  continue 
her  sway  until  she  has  made  them  worthy  to  become  a  free 
and  enlightened  nation." 

non- Asiatic  origin  ;  of  which  only  75,734  (besides  63,000  British  soldiers) 
are  of  British  origin  ;  while  there  are  190,000  native  policemen  alone  in 
the  public  service,  besides  a  native  army  also  consisting  of  about  190,000 
men. — Westminster  Review,  January,  1870. 

'  May's  History,  p.  546. 

*  General  Upton,  of  the  United  States  Army,  lately  sent  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  make  observations  from  the  military,  as  I  have  made  them  from  the 
civil  side  of  administration. — ArtniesofAsia  and  of  Europe,  1879,  p.  51,  67, 
81  and  87. 


CHAPTER  XXYII. 

THE    PRACTICAL    OPERATION    OF    THE    MERIT    SYSTEM    SINCE    1875. 

Great  numbers  who  compete. — The  new  system  in  the  British  colonies. — 
Promotions. — The  census. — Comparison  of  old  and  new  systems. — Fur- 
ther extensions  of  the  new  system. — Probation  made  more  efficient. — 
Publicity  of  appointments  and  promotions. — The  new  system  becomes 
more  popular  and  salutary. — The  Civil  Service  Commission  likely  to  be 
permanent. 

We  are  now  to  consider  the  operations  of  the  new  system, 
in  that  more  perfect  form  into  which  the  various  investigations 
and  improvements  we  have  traced  have  finally  brought  it. 

The  report  for  1875  shows  that  the  whole  number  of  per- 
sons who  had  been  before  the  commission  since  its  creation  (in 
1855)  had  been  142,423,  of  which  70,452  (and  among  them  were 
1622  for  the  military  service)  presented  themselves  within  the 
four  and  a  half  years  of  open  competition  since  July,  1870.  ' 
In  other  words,  during  the  fifteen  years  of  limited  competition, 
the  official  monopolists  who  selected  the  candidates  only  allowed 
an  average  of  about  5000  persons  a  year  to  come  forward  for 
examination  ; '  but  under  open  competition  more  than  15,000 
each  year  had  freely  presented  themselves  before  the  commis- 
sion ;  from  which  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  members  of  Par- 
liament and  other  officials  must  have  deprived  about  10,000  per- 
sons every  year  of  their  equal  right  to  have  their  claims  tested 
for  a  place  in  the  public  service.  And  there  is  the  most  decisive 
evidence  that  the  5000,  which  the  official  monopolists  ticketed 
for  examination,  were  by  no  means  the  more  worthy  portion  of 
the  15,000  who  wished  to  be  examined.  These  excluded  10,000 

'  During  several  years,  immediately  preceding  1870,  the  number  of  per- 
sons presenting  themselves  for  examination  had  exceeded  5000  annual!}' ; 
for  open  competition  was  to  some  extent  allowed,  the  partisan  system  was 
rapidly  decaying,  and  the  ofBcial  blockade  was  less  rigid. 


260  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

were  generally,  I  think  we  may  believe,  either  too  humble  to 
command  influence  or  too  manly  and  independent  to  ask 
favors.  It  is  this  official  tyranny  of  exclusion  which  still  ex- 
ists in  this  country,  but  which,  1  am  persuaded,  could  not  be 
resumed  in  Great  Britain  without  the  utter  overthrow  of  the 
jmrty  proposing  it,  if  it  could  be  without  serious  agitation.^ 
This  report  also  traces  the  progress,  I  have  before  noticed, 
which  is  being  made  in  the  British  colonies  and  dependencies 
for  taking  their  public  service  out  of  party  politics  and  giving 
public  honors  to  persons  of  merit.  In  August,  1874,  examina- 
tions for  admission  to  the  civil  ssrvice  were  introduced  by 
the  legislature  of  South  Australia.  They  had  been  introduced 
into  New  Zealand  in  1866  ;  and  the  reports  for  1873  and  1874 
seem  to  show  that  such  examinations  had  already  been  made 
more  efficient  and  had  been  raised  to  a  higher  standard  than 
ever  has  been  the  case  in  our  own  service,  save  in  a  limited 
sphere  and  for  a  short  time  under  President  Grant.  Reference 
has  before  been  made  to  reforms  in  the  Canadian  civil  service.^ 
From  all  which,  we  are,  I  think,  at  liberty  to  infer  that  the 
time  is  not  remote  when,  if  we  do  not  very  soon  improve  our 
system,  the  most  partisan  and  the  most  illiterate  civil  service  in 
any  part  of  the  world  where  the  English  language  is  spoken 
» Avill  be  that  of  the  United  States.  That  part  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  under  republican  government  will  then  stand  alone 
in  its  open  toleration  of  the  official  coercion,  intrigue,  and  cor- 
rupt bargaining  in  public  honors  and  places  which  had  their 
origin  in  the  most  despotic  experience  of  the  mother  coun- 
try. Of  all  those  speaking  our  language,  republicans  alone 
would  proclaim  that  j)artisan  and  official  influence  should  be 
paramount  in  public  affairs  over  all  considerations  of  personal 
worth  and  capacity  ;  a  distinction,  perhaps,  not  less  likely  to 
arrest  the  world's  attention  than  the  conspicuous  position  we 
so  long  occupied  as  a  slave-holding  republic. 

The  report  of  1876  records  the  death  of  Sir  Edward  Hyan, 
who  had  presided  over  the  Civil  Service  Commission  during 
the  whole  twenty  years  of   its  existence.     During  the   year 

•  See  tbe  letters  of  John  Bright  and  Sir  Charles  Trevelj'an  in  the  Appen- 
dix, and  alsa  ch.  30. 
^  See  last  paragraph,  chap.  I. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  261 

(1875),  15,342  persons  had  appeared  for  examination  ;  and 
some  idea  of  the  activity  of  the  commission  and  of  tlie  pubhc 
interest  felt  in  its  work  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
the  number  of  letters  received  and  written  during  the  year 
had  been  147,350.  This  report  contains  an  order  for  certain 
adaptations  to  be  made  in  conformity  with  the  recommenda- 
tions already  mentioned  as  resulting  from  the  executive  inquiry 
of  1874.  Among  other  things,  it  prDvides  for  boy  clerks,  who 
are  to  secure  their  places  through  open  competition.  It  fur- 
ther increases  the  authority  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission, 
by  providing  that  no  promotions  shall  be  made  from  a  lower  to 
a  higher  division  in  the  service  without  a  special  certificate  of 
([ualifieation  from  that  body  ;  and  it  is  further  ordered  that  all 
appointments,  promotions,  and  transfers  from  one  office  to 
another  shall  be  notified  to  the  commissioners  for  record  in 
their  office,  and  that  they  shall  be,  by  them,  published  in  the 
London  Gazette.  By  such  means,  the  publicity  so  much  needed 
to  prevent  suspicionjwill  be  secured,  and  the  office  of  the  com- 
mission will  contain  a  sort  of  official  record  of  every  person  in 
the  public  service — a  great  convenience  in  making  promotions 
for  merit  as  well  as  a  powerful  stimulant  of  good  conduct. 
This  report  also  shows  that,  for  some  unexplained  reason,  tire 
General  Registrar' s  office  (which  has  charge  of  taking  the 
census)  had  not,  in  1871,  been  brought  under  the  provisions 
for  open  competition  ;  although  the  official  nominees  for  clerks 
(or  census  agents)  were  directed  to  go  through  a  sort  of  pass 
examination  before  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 

The  evidence  taken  on  this  subject  in  1874  facilitates  a  sig- 
nificant comparison  of  the  new  system  with  the  old.  Tlie 
head  of  the  office  gives  a  sad  account  of  the  motley  imbeciles 
put  upon  him  by  members  of  Parliament  for  taking  the  census 
(they  seem  fully  as  bad,  I  think,  as  any  similarly  imposed  upon 
Mr.  Walker  for  taking  our  census)  ;  for  example,  ' '  tv/o  were 
suffering  from  such  offensive  complaints  that  others  could  not 
associate  with  them,  and  I  was  forced  to  put  them  into  sepa- 
rate rooms,  .  .  .  they  were  a  heterogeneous  mass  from  14 
to  60  years  of  age  .  .  .  who  had  tried  many  occupations 
and  failed  in  all."  "When  the  Registrar  was  ordered  to  take 
the  census  in  1871,  he  says  he  supposed  he  was  to  bo  allowed 


262  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

to  have  better  clerks,  obtained  tbrough  open  competition, 
under  the  order  of  1870,  but  he  was  deprived  of  them.  "  The 
Lords  of  the  Treasury  decided  against  me,  .  .  .  and  their 
Lordships  took  to  themselves  the  patronage,  .  .  ."  and  di- 
vided it  among  members.  "  Their  Lordships  acting  on  the  old 
system,  and  following  the  recommendation  of  influential  adher- 
ents, nominated  no  fewer  than  261  census  clerks."  He  found 
that  inquiry  into  their  character  and  history  ' '  was  productive  of 
pain  and  confusion,"  and  he  gave  it  up.  But  he  forced  this 
miscellaneous  herd  of  official  favorites  into  a  pass  examination, 
before  the  commission,  which  rejected  fifty-seven  'per  cent  of 
them,  and  with  the  residue  the  Registrar  succeeded  in  taking 
the  census  of  1871,  and  wonders  that  he  could  do  it.  He 
says  :  ' '  Nothing  could  be  worse  than  the  system  of  nomination 
of  clerks  by  the  Treasury  ;  .  .  .  their  Lordsliips  know 
only  their  names,  and  that  they  were  recommended  by  influ- 
ential peers  or  members  of  Parliament,  supporters  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  da}',  ...  no  inquiry  being  made  as  to 
their  character  and  qualifications."'  Tliis  is  only  one  of  the 
many  examples  (which  together  would  cover  nearly  the  whole 
field  of  adnainistration)  that  might  be  presented,  as  showing 
how  closely  analogous — If  I  may  not  say  how  exactly  alike — 
have  been  the  abuses  of  official  power  and  the  opposition  to  re- 
form in  England  and  in  this  country.  On  certain  points 
connected  with  the  aristocratic  element  in  the  social  life  of 
England,  and  with  the  administrative  subdivisions,  there  is  a 
material  difference  ;  but  beyond  those  matters,  the  analogy  is 
so  close  that  you  may  read  for  hours  in  the  British  documents 
almost  \vithout  a  reflection  that  you  are  not  going  over  abuses 
in  the  service  of  the  United  States.  Had  open  competition 
been  applied  to  the  census  clerks,  those  wishing  to  comjDete 
would  have  quietly  joined  in  a  j)ublic  and  manly  contest,  in 
the  several  places  where  the  examinations  would  have  been 
held,  and  the  most  competent  would  have  been  speedily  ascer- 
tained and  selected  without  the  least  political  significance. 
But,  by  the  method  pursued,  great  noblemen  and  members  of 
Parliament,   political  bodies  and    aspiring    demagogues,  the 

'  Report  Investigation,  1874,  a'oI.  i.,  p.  388,  etc. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN".  263 

Lords  of  the  Treasury  and  the  leaders  of  parties,  were  drawn 
into  a  demorahzing  and  ignominious  scramble  for  patronage, 
reaching  to  hundreds  of  cities  and  villages,  and  affecting  no  one 
can  tell  how  many  elections,  which  finally  resulted  in  261  nom- 
inees so  disgracefully  incompetent  that,  in  mere  self-defence, 
the  census  officer  was  forced  to  subject  the  motley  throng  to  a 
non-partisan  examination  before  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission, which  excluded  57  out  of  each  100  as  utterly  incom- 
petent. And  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  ten  per  cent  of  them 
would  have  been  left  if  he  could  have  put  them  into  open  com- 
petition with  such  young  men  as  would,  if  permitted,  have 
voluntarily  presented  themselves  for  examination.  Tliis  illus- 
tration is  not  the  less  interesting  because  the  taking  of  a  census 
is  before  us,  in  which  our  general  nile  is  quite  sure  to  work 
like  this  British  exception. 

In  1877,  there  were  14,362  persons  before  the  commission, 
of  which  1723  were  for  the  military  service,  and  472  for  India. 
Besides  those  rejected  as  too  young  or  because  of  insufficient 
health  or  bad  character,  there  were  3840  denied  certificates  as 
unqualified  for  the  public  work.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  ratio  of 
incompetents  is  far  less,  and  hence  the  capacity  of  those  apply- 
ing is  much  higher,  than  when  officials  designated  those  to  be 
examined.  Examinations  had  already  been  so  extended  in  the 
home,  military  service  as  to  regulate  admissions  to  ike  Royal 
Military  College^  the  Royal  Military  Academy^  the  Royal 
Marine  ArtilUry^  and  the  Royal  Marine  Light  Infantry. 
Promotion  in  the  military  is  made  to  turn  mainly  upon  attain- 
ments tested  by  examination.  These  several  military  institu- 
tions, I  believe  (owing  to  the  fact  that  there  is  no  military  ser- 
vice in  Great  Britain  corresponding  to  that  of  the  States  of  our 
U  nion),  are  more  than  the  equivalent,  in  our  army  and  navy 
system,  of  the  schools  of  West  Point  and  Annapolis.  When 
we  consider  how  short  has  been  the  period  since  admission  to 
those  English  military  schools  was  as  much  dependent,  as  ad- 
mission either  to  the  school  at  West  Point  or  at  Annapolis  now 
is,  upon  pohtical  influence  or  official  favor,  and  es2)ecially 
when  we  recall  the  fact  that  up  to  1871  commissions  and  pro- 
motions in  the  British,  military  service  were  matters  of  open 
sale  and  purchase,  we  can  better  appreciate  the  strength  of 


264  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

conviction,  in  favor  of  the  new  system,  which  has  so  rapidly 
extended  it  in  all  directions.'  Only  the  English  State  Church 
has  withstood  its  advance.  Her  official  places  are  still  made 
merchandise  or  bestowed  by  official  favor. 

It  is  provided  (concerning  new  appointments)  that  ' '  no  clerk 
shall  remain  more  than  one  year  in  any  department,  unless,  at 
the  end  of  that  time,  the  head  of  the  department  shall  certify 
in  writing  to  the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  that  the  clerk  is 
accepted  by  the  department.  If  he  is  not  accepted,  the  de- 
partment shall  report  to  said  commissioners  the  reasons  for  not 
accepting  him. ' '  On  this  rule  probation  now  stands.  Promo- 
tions from  lower  to  higher  divisions^  of  the  service  are  not  to 
be  made  without  a  certificate  from  the  Civil  Service  Commis- 
sion, nor  until  after  ten  years  of  service.  All  appointments, 
promotions,  and  transfers  are  to  be  recorded  by  the  commission 
and  published  in  the  Londo7i  Gazette.  This  is  a  part  of  the 
procedure  through  which  the  records  of  the  commission  are 
made  to  contain  a  brief  history  of  every  one  in  the  public 
service,  and  the  secrecy  that  facilitates  corruption  and  injus- 
tice are  thus  avoided.  The  public  is  treated  as  having  a  right 
to  be  informed  as  to  what  is  being  done  in  the  public  service 
and  of  the  reasons  for  it.  The  same  nile,  it  will  be  seen,  that 
throws  out  an  inefficient  clerk  after  a  year's  trial  also  puts  a 

'  The  executive  (adopting  some  of  the  suggestions  of  tlie  report  of  the 
last  Parlianientarj'  Commission  already  considered),  by  an  order  in  Council, 
made  in  Februaryj_1876,  provided  for  the  selection,  through  open  compe- 
tition, of  a  less  expensive  class  of  men  and  boy  clerks  in  the  public  service, 
the  members  of  which  are  made  liable  to  do  work  in  any  office,  and  to  go 
from  department  to  department,  as  convenience  may  require.  By  reason 
of  this  provision,  there  will  no  longer  be  a  need  that  every  department  and 
office  shall  have  a  force  equal  to  the  greatest  demand  that  may  be  made 
upon  it ;  but  this  movable,  clerical  force  of  all  work  can  be  shifted  from 
places  where  there  is  relatively  least  to  be  done,  to  places  wlure  there  is 
most.  Men  with  such  experience  must  soon  become  far  more  valuable  in 
their  sphere  of  duty  than  mere  routine  clerks,  who  often  know  little  about 
administration  beyond  that  small  part  that  takes  place  at  their  own  desks. 
This  supplementary  order  rather  increases  the  stringency  of  the  new  system, 
and  with  the  further  orders  of  June  and  December,  1876,  appears  to  extend 
it  and  to  enlarge  the  authority  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 

*  Division  is  not  synonymous  with  our  word  grade  or  class.  There  may 
be  grades  in  a  division. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  265 

check  upon  arbitrary  rejections,  by  requiring  the  written  rea- 
sons for  non-approval  to  be  pressrved  of  record.  Prior  to 
August,  1877,  the  whole  number  who  had  sought  to  enter 
the  public  service  through  examinations  had  readied  the  vast 
aggregate  of  172,127.  Coming  from,  perhaps,  as  many 
homes,  and  from  nearly  every  district,  borough,  village,  and 
hamlet  of  the  kingdom,  where  the  fate  of  those  examined  has 
arrested  attention,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  naturally  the  public 
examinations  have  stimulated  study,  how  broadly  and  usefully 
they  have  advertised  the  fact  that  cliaracter  and  attainments, 
and  not  influence  or  partisan  activity,  are  honored  by  the 
government. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  not  a  charge  of  favoritism,  of  in- 
tentional injustice,  or  of  interference  in  party  politics,  has  ever 
been  brought  against  the  commission,  nor  has  an  instance  of 
actual  injustice,  as  the  accepted  result  of  an  examination,  been 
substantiated.  The  commission  has  steadily  advanced  in  pub- 
lic estimation  ;  and  now,  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  its  grow- 
ing work,  with  duties  more  extended  than  ever  before,  and 
unchallenged  by  any  party  or  by  any  class  of  the  people,  it 
stands  entrenched  in  pubhc  confidence,  with  guarantees  of 
enduring  usefulness  hardly  inferior  to  those  wliich  support  the 
strongest  agency  of  British  government. 


CHAPTER  XXYIII. 

CONCERNING   PARTS   OF   THE   OLD   SPOILS    SYSTEM    EXCLUDED   BY 
THE   CONSTITUTION   OF    THE   UNITED    STATES. 

What  is  SO  excluded. — Mr.  Ilelps's  theory  of  governing  by  religion  and 
honors. — How  titles  and  knighthood  have  been  conferred. — For  what  they 
are  now  conferred. — The  great  "  Orders"  and  their  influence. — Enormous 
abuses  in  former  times  in  granting  pensions. — How  they  are  now  granted. 
— Relations  of  religion  to  politics. — Powers  of  the  crown  over  church 
appointments. — Corruption  in  the  official  life  of  the  church. — Use  of  the 
appointing  power  by  archbishops. — Right  to  be  a  minister  a  matter  of 
merchandise  centuries  ago  and  to  this  day. — Advowsons  and  presentations 
still  openly  advertised  as  for  sale. — How  far  old  checks  on  abuse  of  patron- 
age worthy  our  adoption. — Patronage  and  proscription  have  failed  to  sus- 
tain the  English  Church. — They  are  now  its  opprobrium  and  its  weak- 
ness.— Patronage  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  has  dismembered  it,  and  given 
birth  to  "the  Free  Church  of  Scotland." — How  Englishmen  and  Ameri- 
cans regard  each  other's  abuses. — Purchase  in  the  British  military  system. 
— Its  abolition. — Examinations  for  admission  to  the  British  military  schools. 
— Favoritism  abolished  in  the  British  army  during  the  time  it  has  grown 
in  the  army  of  the  United  States. — Illustrations  from  the  laws  applicable 
to  the  schools  at  Annapolis  and  "West  Point. 

The  repugnancy  of  a  spoils  system  of  office  to  tlie  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  some 
of  the  most  pernicious  and  characteristic  elements  of  the  orig- 
inal system  are  made  impossible  by  the  constitution  itself. 
The  granting  of  titles  of  nobilitj^,  the  requirement  of  religious 
tests,  and  laws  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  therein 
prohibited,  were  not  only  great  bulwarks  of  that  system,  but 
they  have  shown  themselves  to  be  prolific  sources  of  injustice 
and  corruption,  endowed  with  a  vitality  so  tenacious  that  they 
have  outlived  almost  every  other  part  of  the  ancient  abuses  ; 
and,  at  this  moment,  a  demoralizing  method  of  church  patron- 
age and  favoritism,  in  the  spirit  of  mediaeval  times,  stands  out 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT   BRITAIN.  267 

conspicuously  alongside  the  ruins  of  the  old  system  in  the 
domain  of  politics. 

When  Mr.  Arthur  Heljis,  whose  attacks  on  competitive 
examinations  the  apologists  of  a  republican  spoils  system  are  so 
much  in  the  habit  of  quoting,  in  his  "  Thoughts  on  Govern- 
ment,'" approved  the  maxim  of  Buonaparte,  which  declares 
that  ' '  religion  and  honors  are  the  two  things  by  which  man- 
kind may  be  governed,"  and  declared  "  that  the  British  Con- 
stitution is  the  best  that  has  yet  been  devised  by  man,"  he 
knew  very  well  what  he  meant ;  for,  from  his  central  place  as 
the  Secretary  of  the  Privy  Council,  he  had  during  many  years 
looked  down  through  the  ranlcs  of  social  life  and  all  the  grades 
of  state-church  officials,  and  knew  how  they  were  moved  ;  but 
lie  had  no  more  sympathy  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  than  he  had  with  the  partisan  manipulations  and  in- 
trigue of  those  who  so  absurdly  invoke  and  misconceive  his 
words  and  the  system  he  approved. 

In  a  general  way,  the  exercise  of  the  powers  of  the  govern- 
ment in  matters  of  religion,  and  of  those  of  the  crown  in  confer- 
ring rank,  pensions,  and  social  distinction,  in  a  prescriptive 
and  corrupt  spirit,  have  been  already  pointed  out  ;  but  some 
further  explanations  may  both  illustrate  the  great  difficulties 
of  overcoming  the  British  spoils  system  and  place  in  a  clearer 
light  the  true  character  and  tendencies  of  our  own. 

It  is  familiar  knowledge  that  the  power  of  conferring 
titles,  orders,  knighthoods,  and  social  distinction  in  many 
ways,  has  been  in  past  centuries  an  important  source  of 
strength  on  the  part  of  the  crown,  and  in  later  years  on  the 
part  both  of  the  crown  and  the  ministry.  The  exercise  of 
such  a  power  concerns  elements  of  hope  and  ambition,  active 
and  powerful  under  every  form  of  govemnnent,  but  especially 
so  in  an  old  monarchy,  where  standards  set  up  by  itself  have 
acquired  something  like  the  respect  accorded  to  the  dictates  of 
natural  justice.  A  true  history  of  its  exercise  would  be  found 
to  run  parallel  with  that  of  the  use  of  the  appointing  power, 
to  which  it  has,  in  corrupt  times,  been  little  more  than  an 
adjunct  in  creating  and  dividing  the  spoils  of  politics.     When 

»  Published  in  1873. 


268  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN". 

James  IT.  or  Charles  II.  or  Walpole  used  offices  and  places 
as  merchandise  and  bribes,  they  gave  titles  and  decora- 
tions to  vile  women  and  corrupt  men.  In  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne  twelve  peers  were  created  at  one  time  in  order 
to  secure  a  court  majority.  William  Pitt  caused  peerages  to 
be  freely  created — one  hundred  and  forty  being  created  during 
his  administration — and  he  used  them  to  reward  his  political 
followers.  The  passage  of  the  great  Reform  bill  of  18.32  hung 
in  doubt  until  the  administration  turned  the  scale  by  a  threat 
to  create  a  large  number  of  peers  who  would  vote  for  it. 
The  scramble  for  peerages  appears  to  have  been  as  fierce  and 
troublesome  as  the  scramble  for  office  has  ever  been  in  a 
republic.  Mr.  May  says  that  every  minister  is  obliged  to  re- 
sist the  solicitation  of  not  less  than  ten  earnest  claimants  for 
every  peerage  which  he  can  bestow,  and  that  recently  a  minister 
found  that  in  a  single  year  upwards  of  thirty  of  his  supporters 
were  ambitious  of  a  peerage,  as  an  acknowledgment  of  their 
friendship  toward  himself  and  of  their  devotion  to  his  party. 
As  a  natural  result,  aided  by  the  increase  of  population  and 
wealth,  the  House  of  Lords,  which  at  the  accession  of  George 
III.  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  members,  had 
by  1860  increased  to  four  hundred  and  sixty  members.  George 
III.  abused  the  power  of  creating  knights  and  baronets,  as  he 
did  all  his  other  powers,  for  political  and  personal  purposes. 
During  his  reign  four  hundred  and  ninety-four  baronetcies 
were  created  ;  and  he  responded  to  congratulations  on  his 
escaping  assassination  by  conferring  so  many  knighthoods  tliat 
the  degradation  of  that  order  was  long  recognized,  even  if 
it  has  ever  regained  its  old  distinction.  If,  in  these  times, 
many  men,  with  real  claims  to  social  eminence,  in  a  republican 
spirit  decline  royAl  aid  to  that  end,  it  is  yet  true,  I  think,  that 
rank  and  social  distinctions  thus  conferred  by  the  crown  are  a 
powerful  influence  for  royalty.  In  1860  there  were  eight 
hundred  and  sixty  baronets,  as  against  about  five  hundred  on 
the  accession  of  George  III.  Without  attempting  to  trace  the 
history  of  the  power  of  conferring  titles,  it  must  suffice  to  say 
that  it  survives  in  great  though  in  waning  vigor  ;  a  royal  and 
aristocratic  agency  in  government  still  holding  its  place  in  the 
liberal  currents  of  British  politics  by  which  it  is  being  slowly 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  269 

abraded.'  The  same  causes  which  have  compelled  the  use  of 
the  appointing  power  in  the  common  interests  of  the  people 
have  enforced  the  exercise  of  nearly  all  kindred  authority  in  the 
same  spirit ;  and  at  this  time  titles  and  decorations  are  rarely 
conferred  in  a  mere  partisan  spirit,  nor  does  any  suspicion  of 
corruption  appear  to  attach  to  their  bestowal. 

While  the  true  republican  theory  in  regard  to  this  agency  of 
government  seems  to  be  gaining  strength,  no  one  can  look 
over  the  list  of  those  honored  by  the  favor  of  the  crown, 
or  listen  to  the  prevailing  views  of  Englishmen  on  the  subject, 
without  being  deeply  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  vast  in- 
fluence thus  exerted,  and  of  the  utter  incompatibility  in  prin- 
ciple of  this  medieval  prerogative  with  the  new  methods  in 
British  politics.  The  variety  and  prestige  of  the  great  orders 
--"Knights  of  the  Garter,"  "Knights  of  the  Thistle," 
"Knights  of  the  Order  of  St.  Patrick,"  "  Knights  of  the 
Bath,"  with  its  many  classes;  "Order  of  St.  Michael  and 
St.  George,"  "  Order  of  the  Star  of  India,"  with  their 
numerous  and  distinguished  membership,  extending  to  foreign 
statesmen  and  princes  and  drawing  within  their  seductive 
influence  so  many  men  of  the  highest  capacity  and  station  at 
home — present  another  forcible  illustration  of  the  adverse  in- 
terests and  the  traditional  privileges  by  which  the  reform  of 
the  ci\'il  service  has  been  confronted  and  delayed  in  Great 
Britain. 

Perhaps  no  part  of  this  old  authority  of  the  crown  is  now 
exercised  in  closer  analogy  to  the  partisan  use  of  the  appoint- 
ing power  than  that  of  conferring  knighthood  and  baronetcies. 
"  In  acknowledgment  of  the  zeal  displayed  by  the  city  of 
London,  on  the  occasion  of  the  thanksgiving,  a  Baronetcy  is  to 
be  conferred  on  the  Lord  Mayor  ;  and  Sheriffs  Truscott  and 
Bennett  will  obtain  the  honor  of  Knighthood,"  ^  is  a  journal- 

'  "  It  is  of  the  nature  of  the  curious  influence  of  rank  to  work  much  more 
on  men  singly  than  on  men  collectively  ;"  it  is  an  influence  which  most  men 
—at  least,  most  Englishmen — feel  very  much,  but  of  which  most  English- 
men are  somewhat  ashamed.  Each  man  is  a  little  afraid  (hat  "  his  sneaking 
kindness  for  a  lord,"  as  Mr.  Gladstone  put  it,  be  found  out. — Bageliot  on 
The  English  Constitution,  pp.  24  and  25. 

*  London  Daily  Telegraph,  March  1,  1872. 
18 


270  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

istic  illustration  of  the  use  of  this  power,  of  which  frequent 
examples  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  leading  newspapers  ;  and 
yet,  while  non-partisan  zeal  for  the  Queen  may  be  thus  rewarded 
by  royal  favor,  no  administration,  I  think,  would  venture  to 
advise  its  exercise  on  mere  partisan  grounds  ;  and  it  is  but  just 
to  say  that  it  is  generally  exercised  for  the  purpose  of  reward- 
ing exceptional  capacity  or  devotion  in  the  interest  of  science, 
literature,  or  philanthropy.  Let  the  citizens  of  a  republic,  if 
they  will,  condemn  the  tame  compliance  with  official  wishes 
which  such  notices  may  be  thought  to  prove,  and  find  in  the 
reward  of  mere  zeal  for  royalty  an  unworthy  use  of  executive 
power,  but  let  them  at  the  same  time  remember  the  pervading 
subserviency,  of  minor  officials  among  themselves,  to  officers 
having  the  appointing  power,  and  the  fact  that  they  have  seen 
not  individuals  only,  but  conventions  and  legislatures  obse- 
quious before,  not  the  head  of  an  ancient  line  of  princes,  but 
the  temporary  officers  of  their  own  creation.  If  it  is  bad  in  a 
monarchy  to  give  social  precedence  to  those  wdio  are  zealous 
for  the  crown  and  the  nobility,  for  which  the  constitution  pro- 
vides, is  it  better  in  a  republic  to  give  offices  and  salaries  as 
rewards  for  zeal  for  parties  for  which  the  constitution  does  not 
provide  ? 

Closely  connected  with  the  govermnental  agency  just  con- 
sidered is  another  affording  a  similar  illustration  and  equally 
repugnant  to  our  system — that  of  pensions  granted  by  the 
crown  (formerly)  or  the  administration  in  (the  practice  of) 
recent  years.  This  authority,  once  as  vast  as  it  was  pernicious, 
has  in  later  times  been  reduced  to  small  if  not  to  harmless 
proportions.  It  is  important  that  this  power  of  pensioning 
should  be  apprehended  as  distinct  from  the  authority  of  grant- 
ing superannuating  or  retiring  allowances  in  the  public  service, 
which  I  have  already  explained.'  Those  allowances  are  really 
a  part  of  the  compensation  of  the  officer — of  the  conditions  on 
which  he  entered  the  public  service — and  are  not,  therefore, 
given  on  any  theory  of  a  gratuity  or  of  favor.  Looked  at 
from  the  side  of  the  government,  they  are  regarded  as  present- 
ing an  ingenious  and  just  method  of  securing  a  good  quality  of 

'  See  ante,  pp.  141-144. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  271 

service  at  the  most  reasonable  rates  ;  and  from  the  side  of  the 
officer,  as  an  inducement  to  greater  economy,  at  the  opening 
of  official  life,  in  order  to  secure,  by  reason  of  what  he  then 
forbears  to  receive,  a  cei-tain  provision  for  his  declining  years. 

The  pension  proper  (in  civil  life)  is  a  different  matter  alto- 
gether ;  being  the  bribe  of  the  crown  or  administration  for 
political  effect,  or  its  favor  bestowed  upon  some  person  deemed 
fit  for  its  charity  or  deserving  of  its  honor,  and  often  irre- 
spective of  such  person  being  or  having  been  in  the  public 
service.  The  history  of  giving  pensions,  like  that  of  confer- 
ring offices  and  titles,'  may  be  easily  traced  back  to  the  dark 
ages  of  corruption,  and  if  possible  the  authority  to  grant 
them  has  been  used  more  disgracefully  and  craftily  than  any 
other  power  of  the  government.  I  cannot  spare  the  space 
needed  to  give  anything  like  a  history  of  this  branch  of  execu- 
tive authority,  but  a  brief  notice  of  it  may  be  useful.  It  is 
well  known  that  vast  sums  were  squandered  as  pensions  upon 
royal  and  court  favorites — male  and  female — in  the  times  of 
the  Stuarts.  In  the  earlier  years  of  the  House  of  Hanover, 
the  extravagance  was  hardly  less,  if  the  moral  tone  was  a  little 
improved;  and  in  later  days,  amounts  not  much  smaller,  though 
not  technically  called  pensions,  have  been  used  in  a  resj)ectable 
way  to  support  the  households  of  the  members  of  the  royal 
family.  Now  "  the  crown,"  says  Mr.  May,'  "  repudiates  the 
indirect  influences  exercised  in  former  reigns,  and  is  free  from 
imputations  of  corruption. ' '  That  the  crown  is  neither  cor- 
rupt nor  thought  to  be  capable  of  corruption  is,  I  believe, 
beyond  question  ;  but  in  view  of  its  broad  bestowal  of  titles, 
and  of  the  lavish  votes  of  money  to  keep  up  the  prestige  and 
influence  of  the  several  members  of  the  royal  family,  I  fail  to 
see  how  it  can  be  said  that  "  indirect  influence"  is  repudiated. 

It  had  been  the  practice  and  the  conceded  right  of  the  crown, 
before  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  to  charge  pensions  and  an- 
nuities in  perpetuity  upon  its  hereditary  revenues  ;  but  on  her 
accession,  the  right  of  making  such  charges  was  limited  to  the 
lifetime  of  the  reigning  king,  but  this  restriction  did  not 
extend  to  Scotch  or  Irish  revenues,  nor  did  it  cover  all  other 

'  Const.  Hist.,  vol.  i.,  p.  203. 


272  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

revenues  within  the  power  of  the  crown.  "  From  the  period 
of  the  revohition,  places  and  pensions  have  been  regarded  as 
the  pnce  of  political  dependence,"  and  in  1705,  persons  enjoy- 
ing a  pension  during  the  pleasure  of  the  crown  were  by  law 
excluded  from  Parliament.'  Even  after  the  accession  of 
Oeorge  III.,  when  a  fixed  civil  list  was  provided,  there  was 
authority  to  charge  pensions  upon  that  list.  Vast  sums  as 
pensions  and  annuities  were  charged  upon  it  or  other  property, 
by  that  prince  and  his  successors  ;  and  coiTuption  and  servility, 
as  a  consequence,  were  serious  evils.  Mr.  Burke  made  a  great 
effort  for  the  reduction  of  the  pension  list  to  $3,000,000  ;  and 
under  the  Rockingham  administration  it  was  provided  that 
until  it  should  be  reduced  to  $■!:, 500,000,  no  pension  above 
$1500  a  year  should  be  granted,  and  that  the  aggregate  pen- 
sions granted  in  one  year  should  not  exceed  $3000.  It  was 
further  provided  that  pensions  should  be  given  only  "as  a 
royal  bounty  to  persons  in  distress  or  as  a  reward  for  desert." 
J5ut,  notwithstanding  these  great  reforms,  large  amounts  of 
revenue  from  Ireland  and  Scotland  were  available,  and  were 
used  for  the  purposes  of  political  corniption  and  royal  coer- 
cion. The  Irish  pension  list  of  George  III.  was  in  1793 
$620,000,  when  important  restrictions  were  imposed.  In 
Scotland  the  free  use  of  pensions  by  the  cro^vn  was  tolerated 
until  1810,  when  the  pension  list  had  reached  $195,000. 
There  was  an  available  pension  fund  apparently  in  the  discre- 
tion of  the  crown  for  political  purposes  until  1830,  when  all 
the  pension  lists  were  consolidated.  And  on  the  accession  of 
Queen  Yictoria  to  the  throne,  in  1837,  the  right  of  the  crown 
to  grant  pensions  was  limited  to  $6000  a  year,  and  they  can 
only  be  granted  in  that  amount  "  to  such  persons  as  have  just 
claims  on  the  royal  beneficence,  or  who,  by  their  personal 
services  to  the  croion,  by  their  performance  of  duties  to  the 
public,  or  by  their  useful  discoveries  in  science  and  attain- 
ments in  literature  and  the  arts,  have  merited  the  gracious 
consideration  of  their  sovereign  and  the  gratitude  of  their 
country."  *     It  will  thus  be  seen  that  this  vast  power  of  cor- 

'  1  May  Const.  Hist.,  p.  294.     4  Anne,  chap.  viii. 
*  1  Vict.,  chap.  ii. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  273 

niption,  Tinder  the  form  of  pensions,  lias  departed  with  the 
prostitution  of  the  appointing  power,  and  that  the  reasons  for 
the  use  of  $6000  a  year  in  pensions  are — if  the  principle  of 
granting  pensions  at  all  is  conceded — of  a  kind  as  lit  to  be 
approved  by  a  repubhc  as  by  a  monarchy  ;  except  in  so  far 
as  the  right  of  pensioning  on  political  grounds  may  be  covered 
by  the  phrase  "  personal  services  to  the  crown  ;"  and  we  may 
accept  the  declaration  of  Mr.  May  that  ' '  the  names  of  those 
who  receive  the  royal  bounty  are  generally  such  as  to  com- 
mand respect  and  sympathy. ' '  ' 

But  of  all  the  authority  conferred  by  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, in  excess  of  what  is  allowed  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  that  which  has  been  the  most  grossly  per- 
verted for  the  purposes  of  coercion  and  injustice  in  adminis- 
tration is  the  authority  over  religion  aiid  a  state  church.  It 
would  require  a  volume  to  set  forth  the  disastrous  conse- 
quences which  have  flowed  from  the  forced  relation  between 
religion  and  politics,  as  disclosed  in  British  history.  "  In 
the  sixteenth  century  the  history  of  the  church  is  the  histt>ry 
of  England.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  relations  of  the 
church  to  the  state  and  society  contributed,  with  political 
causes,  to  convulse  the  kingdom  with  civil  wars  and  revolu- 
tions." *  Having  already  given  adequate  illustration  of  the 
great  fact  that  authority  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  has  been  as 
unscrupulously  prostituted  as  authority  In  civil  aifairs,  there 
are  only  a  few  important  considerations  to  be  added  in  this  con- 
nection. The  British  king,  as  the  supreme  head  on  earth  of 
the  Church  of  England,  has  been  held  to  have  not  only  the 
right  to  convene,  prorogue,  and  regulate  all  ecclesiastical  syn- 
ods and  conventions,  but  also  the  right  of  nomination  to 
all  vacant  bishoprics  ;  and  through  that  supreme  power  he 
has  had  a  similar  facility,  for  interference,  intimidation,  and 
control  in  regard  to  all  subordinate  nominations  and  all  oflicial 
action  in  the  lower  spheres  of  ecclesiastical  life,  to  that  pos- 
sessed by  a  President  of  the  United  States,  or  by  Senators  and 
Governors  in  their  own  States,  to  meddle,  %vithout  constitu- 
tional warrant,  with  every  subordinate  nomination  down  to  that 

'  1  Const.  Hist.,  p.  214.  «  2  May's  Constitutional  History,  p.  291. 


274:  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN". 

of  doorkeeper  in  a  warehouse  or  a  clerk  in  a  convention  ;  and 
I  hardly  need  add,  that  this  royal  prerogative  was  formerly 
used  to  its  full  measure.  When  we  consider  the  superstitious 
awe  inspired  by  the  head  of  the  church,  added  to  the  pervad- 
ing fear  of  the  head  of  the  state,  in  earlier  ages,  we  can  more 
readily  comprehend  how  crushing  was  the  weight  .of  a  despotic, 
spoils  system  which  was  supreme  alike  in  the  sphere  of  relig- 
ion and  in  the  8j)here  of  politics.  It  should  also  be  borne  in 
mind  that  several  of  these  church  officers  had  authority  affect- 
ing property  and  persons  in  their  secular  relations  united  with 
their  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical  powers,  and  that,  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  state  church  and  the  use  of  its  officials,  the  tithes 
of  all  lands  and  stock  were  set  apart.  Offices  and  places  of 
every  grade — from  that  of  the  archbishop  to  that  of  the 
beadle  and  the  churchwarden — were  given  as  bribes  or  sold 
for  money  just  as  openly  and  as  unscrupulously  as  were  offices 
and  jDlaces  in  the  state.  Those  miscellaneous  kinds  of  venality 
and  corruption — for  which  our  statutes  have  no  aggregate 
name,  but  which  in  English  statutes  are  designated  as  "  office 
brokerage" — were  early  developed  in  connection  with  the  offices 
and  patronage  of  the  church.  More  than  three  centuries  ago,  it 
had  become  an  established  custom,  for  example,  that  an  arch- 
bishop, upon  consecrating  a  bishop,  might  name  a  favorite  of 
his  own  to  be  called  a  clerk  or  chaplain,  who  was  "  to  be  pro- 
vided for' '  '  by  the  bishop  ;  just  as  republican  officers,  who  now 
have  the  power  of  appointment  or  confirmation,  require  those 
toward  whom  they  discharge  a  public  duty  "  to  provide  for  " 
some  of  their  dependants  ;  but,  more  openly  and  boldly,  the  old, 
church  spoils  system  allowed  this  venal  imposition  to  be  con- 
firmed, by  deed  in  due  form  of  law,  ninning  to  the  arch- 
bishop, his  executors  and  assigns.  With  such  an  example  on 
the  part  of  the  archbishop,  we  may  well  believe  that  the 
bishops,  the  deans,  the  archdeacons,  the  deacons,  and 
every  church  official  having  any  right  of  nomination  or  con- 
firmation, had  their  favorites  "to  be  provided  for."  This 
right  to  be  provided  for  was  treated  as  a  fit  subject  of  trade 

'  This  phrase,  generally  supposed  to  have  been  first  used  to  mark  a  peculiar 
form  of  corruption  in  our  politics,  is  to  be  found  applied  in  the  modern  sense, 
in  Blackstone's  Com.,  vol.  i.  ch.  ii.,  to  high  church  officials. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  275 

and  barter,  and  was  known  and  protected  in  law  under  the 
name  of  the  arclibishoi^'s  "option."'  In  times  which  toler- 
ated such  dealings  with  the  sacred  offices  of  the  church,  it  was 
natural  that  the  rights  of  selection  of  rectors,  parsons,  curates 
and  vicars — that  is,  the  right  to  live  in  the  parsonage  house 
and  to  officiate  as  a  minister  of  a  parish — should  become  venal, 
mere  matters  of  bargain,  barter,  and  sale  ;  and  under  the 
names  of  "  advowsons"  and  "presentations"  they  early  be- 
came as  much  articles  of  merchandise,  and  as  such  were  as 
openly  a  subject  of  negotiation  and  trade,  and  were  as  fully 
recognized  by  law,  as  land  titles  or  cattle.  Ownership  of 
these  rights  of  naming  the  next  minister  could  be  held  by  the 
crown,  by  individuals,  by  corporations,  or  even  by  military 
orders.  It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  here  describe  the  scan- 
dals, dilapidation  of  church  edifices,  corruption  in  the  care  of 
church  property,  decay  of  spiritual  life,  or  contempt  for  relig- 
ious and  sacred  things,  which  flowed  from  such  abuses.^  This 
right  of  property  in  advowsons  and  presentations  was  as  care- 
fully protected  by  the  law  and  the  courts,  and  is  by  British  law- 
writers  made  the  subject  of  as  elaborate  description,  as  any  other 
kind  of  property  whatever  ;  Blackstone,  saying  that  "  an  advow- 
Bon"  (which  he  declares  to  be  "  synonymous  with  patronage, " 
that  is,  it  expresses  the  same  relation  to  an  office  ^  of  the  church 
that  "patronage"  does  to  an  office  in  the  state)  will  more 
completely  illustrate  a  particular  kind  of  property  than  any 
example  he  can  give.     When  church  patronage  had  thus  come 

•  I  am  not  aware  that  any  analogous  right  has  ever  been  recognized  under 
American  law,  much  as  we  have  acted  on  tlie  same  theory  in  politics.  In 
morality  and  legal  theory  it  is  most  suggestive  of  a  stock-jobber's  "  put." 

'  See,  on  these  points,  ante,  p.  47. 

*  Despite  this  high  authoritj',  I  must  think  there  is  considerable  difference 
between  patronage  as  applied  to  the  choice  of  a  minister  and  patronage  as 
applied  to  civil  offices  generally ;  yet  they  have  these  most  important  ele- 
ments in  common  :  they  make  merchandise  of  places  of  trust,  and  they  re- 
fuse to  allow  worth  and  capacity  to  determine  the  selections  for  office.  But, 
beyond  the  special  kind  of  church  patronage  here  referred  to,  patronage, 
essentially  the  same  as  that  which  prevailed  in  politics,  also  extended  to  the 
selection  and  promotion  of  church  officials ;  and  perhaps  that  fonn  of  it, 
known  as  nepotism,  was  even  worse  in  the  church  than  in  the  state.  The 
making  of  his  infant  son  Bishop  of  Osnaburgh,  by  George  III.,  is  an  ex- 
ample. 


276  CIVIL   SEKVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN". 

to  be  valuable  property,  tlie  monastic  orders  (among  others) 
"  begged  and  bought  "  as  many  advowsons  as  possible  ;  and 
having  in  that  way  got  control  of  the  income  of  a  vast  num- 
ber of  benefices  oi*  parishes — said  to  have  been  one  third  of 
tho^e  in  England — they  devoted  it  to  their  own  establishments, 
to  the  great  prejudice  of  the  poor  and  of  religion  among  the 
people.  But  on  the  breaking  up  of  these  orders  under  Henry 
YIII.  their  advowsons  were  seized  by  the  Crown,  and  were 
afterwards  in  large  part  given  as  favors  or  bribes  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  the  cornipt  administration  of  the  times  ; 
thus  making  the  circuit  of  venality,  from  one  private  owner, 
through  both  ecclesiastical  and  civil  officers,  to  another  pri- 
vate owner.  ' '  Lay  patronage  placed  the  greater  part  of  the 
benefices  at  the  disposal  of  the  Crown,  the  barons,  and  the 
land-owners  ;"  *  and  hence  we  see  a  whole  hemisphere  of  pat- 
ronage, beyond  uny  ever  known  in  this  country,  in  the  con- 
trol of  the  privileged  classes  and  their  friends  —  the  party 
forever  in  power  under  a  despotic  government.  This  owner- 
ship of  patronage,  both  on  the  part  of  the  crown  and  of  indi- 
viduals, seems  to  have  continued,  doubtless  with  great  changes, 
until  the  present  time.  The  same  causes  which  thus  largely 
tended  to  make  the  sacred  domain  of  the  church  a  great  arena 
for  bargaining  and  pecuniary  greed ;  which  developed  a 
system  of  corruption  which  in  many  ways  greatly  increased  the 
difficulty  of  reform  in  civil  affairs ;  which  caused  those  who 
officiated  in  Christian  pulpits  to  be  looked  uj^on  and  to  be  re- 
ferred to  in  the  laws,  not  go  much  as  being  unworldly  guides 
and  teachers  in  sjjiritual  matters,  but  as  purchasers  and  holders 
of  "  livings"  for  their  own  enjoyment — also  caused  holders  of 
church  offices  to  be  treated  as  having  a  pecuniary  right  to  their 
offices  ;  "So  that  even  parish  clerks  and  sextons  are  also  re- 
garded, by  the  common  law,  as  persons  who  have  freeholds  in 
their  offices."  ■' 

The  holder  of  an  advowson  in  theory  had  no  absolute  right 
to  have  his  man — called  "  a  clerk  " — made  a  minister,  rector, 
pastor,  or  vicar,  any  more  than  a  member  of  Parliament  or 
of  Congress,  in  the  use  of  his  patronage  has,  in  theory,  a 

'  2  May's  Const.  Hist.,  p.  297.  "  Blackstone's  Com.,  vol.  i.  ch.  ii. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  277 

right  to  liave  his  man  made  a  collector,  bookkeeper,  weigher, 
or  inspector  ;  but  ancient  bishops  found  resistance  to  be  as 
difficult  as  secretaries  and  heads  of  offices  have  ever  found  it 
to  be  in  later  times.  I  have  already  explained  the  device  of  a 
"Patronage  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,"  and  his  duty  of 
weighing  and  apportioning  patronage  as  an  indispensable  re- 
straint upon  parliamentary  importunity  ;  and,  for  similar 
reasons,  perhaps,  barriers  were  set  up  between  the  pushing 
holdera  of  patronage  and  the  bishop,  some  of  which  would 
be  very  embarrassing  if  applied  to  our  patronage  holders  in 
poHtics ;  for  the  bishop  might  reject  a  clerk  if  "an  alien," 
in  "want  of  learning,"  or  when  "under  age";  but  there 
were  other  conditions  which  modern  partisans  would  not  object 
to,  for  the  bishop  could  not  reject  the  clerk  "for  haunting 
taverns  or  playing  unla^vful  games."  His  vice  muet  be  malum 
in  86,  or  the  clerk  was  held  good  enough  for  a  minister.  And 
may  it  not  be  true  that  the  regularity,  justice,  and  publicity 
which  such  provisions  secured — that  the  open  recognition  of  the 
rights  of  patronage  and  of  the  real  influences  which  controlled 
appointments,  however  venal — are  preferable  to  the  secret  in- 
trigue, corruption,  and  uncertainty  which  disguise  the  iniquity 
of  the  transaction  itself  in  our  politics,  without  exposing  either 
tlie  obsequiousness  of  the  official,  or  the  unpatriotic  importunity 
of  the  patronage-monger  ?  If  we  are  to  endure  much  longer 
the  evils  of  a  civil,  patronage  system,  borrowed  from  Great 
Britain,  why  should  we  not  also  borrow  the  methods  by 
which  she  mitigated  its  evils,  and,  like  her,  openly  avow  our 
venality  and  boldly  practise  in  tlie  light  a  corruption  which, 
perhaps,  to  be  arrested  needs  only  to  be  seen  ?  Until  we  can 
prevent  legislators  and  party  leaders  foisting  their  unworthy 
dependants  and  henchmen  upon  the  executive  departments, 
why  not  have  "a  patronage  secretary"  and  patronage  itself 
apportioned  and  entered  of  record  on  the  books  of  the  Treasury 
like  salaries,  and  the  reasons  for  which  a  secretary  may  reject 
a  nominee  as  distinctly  stated  as  were  the  reasons  for  which  a 
bishop  might  reject  a  clerk  ?  We  should  then  know,  at  least 
as  between  those  who  urged  and  those  who  accepted  a  bad 
nomination,  where  the  responsibility  rests,  and  how  to  direct 
the  public  censure. 


278  CIVIL  SERVICE   IlSr   great  BRITAIN". 

If  imder  any  circumstances  it  be  possible  for  a  clmrcli — any 
more  than  for  a  party — to  maintain  its  prestige  and  author- 
ity  by  favoritism  and  proscription,  it  would  seem  it  should 
have   been  the  case   of  the  Church  of  England — the  church 
of  the  king,  the  nobility,  the  rich  and  high-born  classes — thus 
privileged  and  fortified  in  her  vast  j)atronage  and  her  all-per- 
vading ministrations.     And  she  had  yet  other  and  not  less 
powerful  means  of  domination.      For  the  Corporation  Act 
of  1661  shut  the  gates  of  office  against  the  Protestant  non- 
conformists, and  the  Test  Act,  1663,  made  the  papists  incom- 
petent to  hold  any  official  position,  high  or  low,  national  or 
municipal,  civil  or  ecclesiastical  ;  and  these  laws,  under  which 
both  the  creed  and  the  sacraitient  of  the  state  church  were 
made  conditions  of  holding  office — even  though  her  highest 
dignitaries  admitted  a  fear  that  they  "  had  led,  in  too  many 
instances,   to  the  profanation  of    the  most  sacred  offices  of 
religion'- — remained  unrepealed  for  more  than  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years — until  1828.     It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  stoj) 
to  inquire  which,  in  point  of  justice,  is  the  most  indefeasible, 
or  which  in  practice  is  most  disastrous : — this   old   despotic 
system,  under  which,  by  pemianent  provision  of  law,  mere  opin- 
ions about  religion  were  made  grounds  of  exclusion  from  all 
offices  ;  or  the  modern,  partisan  system,  which,  going  beyond 
law,    and  without    the  courage  to  declare  mere   opinions   a 
ground  of  exclusion,  yet  accomplishes  an  equal  amount  of  pro- 
scription by  giving  each  party  in  turn  the  opportunity  to  ex- 
pel and  exclude  its  adversaries  from  office,  for  mere  opinions 
about  politics.     But  it  may  perhaps  be  useful  for  us  to  reflect 
upon  the  facts  that,  besides  all  the   strength  which  a  state 
church  or  a  state    church  party    could   gain   from    all  this 
patronage  and  proscription  in  its  behalf,  there  was  the  still 
further  advantage  of  having  its  creed  taught  in  all  the  great 
institutions   of  learning,  where   it   excluded  those   professing 
any  other  faith  ; '  of  its  having  a  monopoly  of  entrance  at  the 

*  It  was  not  until  1871  that  all  religious  tests  were  abolished  for  admis- 
sion to  offices  and  degrees  in  the  Universities.  The  nonconformists  had  to 
liay  rates  for  the  benefit  of  the  state  church  until  1868  ;  and  though  some- 
thing like  justice  is  thus  secured  to  the  living,  the  dead  are  still  made  the 
subjects  of  state  church  restrictions  before  they  can  be  laid  for  their  final 
rest  in  the  cemeteries. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  279 

gates  of  the  great  professions  ;  of  its  being  proclaimed  in  the 
courts  of  law,  in  the  halls  of  legislation,  at  the  head  of  regi- 
ments, in  the  cabins  of  ships,  in  every  oifice  and  in  every  place 
of  honor,  from  the  smallest  fort  or  consulate  to  the  palace  and 
the  throne  ;  but  with  what  results  ?  Catholicism,  toward  which 
the  state  church  itself  has  an  ominous  leaning,  is  growing 
more  formidable  in  Great  Britain.  Among  the  dissenters  are 
to  be  counted,  probably,  one  half  of  the  people  and  of  the 
piety  of  England.  Patronage  and  favoritism — upheld,  doubt- 
less, by  their  connection  with  the  creed  and  the  sacraments,  in 
the  sphere  of  religion  after  they  have  been  crushed  in  the  do- 
main of  politics — are  at  once  the  opprobrium  of  the  Church  of 
England '  and  the  weakest  point  in  her  battlement,  through 
which  her  enemies  are  making  their  most  dangerous  assaults  ; 
while  on  this  continent  the  old,  state  church  faith,  transplanted 
without  its  patronage  and  venality,  has  grown  with  an  earnest- 
ness of  spirit  and  a  material  prosperity  which  are  the  best  of 
all  refutations  of  the  theory  that  a  party  based  on  religion, 
any  more  than  a  party  based  on  politics,  can  prosj)er  on  the 
prostitution  of  its  offices  or  the   degradation  of  its  principles. 


'  Speaking  of  these  abuses,  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol  says  : 
"In  regard  to  the  sale  of  benefices,  and  especially  of  next  presentations,  it 
must  be  admitted  we  are  in  the  greatest  possible  difficulty.  .  .  . " — 37ne- 
teenth  Ceniui-y,  March,  1877,  p.  58. 

The  dissenters  of  course  stop  with  no  such  moderate  language.  "  A  more 
mournful  and  painful  book  (' '  Purchase  in  the  Church,  etc. ' ')  can  scarcely  be 
imagined.  ...  It  is  impossible  to  question  the  accuracy  of  these  instances, 
the  aggregate  of  which — 1400 — is  one  tenth  of  the  entire  livings  of  the  Church 
in  the  market  for  sale  or  barter  at  the  same  time.  .  .  .  The  living  of  Tra- 
haverock,  in  Cornwall,  worth  £180  a  year,  is  advertised  for  sale.  The  ad- 
vertisement states  "  there  is  vo  cure  of  souls  to  perform,  and  no  residence  is  re- 
quired."— British  Quarterly  Reriew,  Oct.  8,  1878. 

The  following  are  advertisements  (similar  to  those  to  be  found  in  any  of 
the  journals)  cut  from  the  London  Times  in  September,  1870  : 

"  Advowson  for  Sale  (a  Rectory),  situate  close  to  a  good  town  in  an  etistern 
county.  Situation  most  healthy  and  pleasant.  Good  society.  Income  is 
about  £250  a  year,  and  there  is  a  prospect  of  a  very  early  possession,  excel- 
lent vicarage  house,  grounds,  etc.  Address,  J.  B.,  51  Hollywood  Road,  West 
Brompton." 

"140  Preferments  for  Sale.  Tlie  Church  Preferment  Register,  for  Sep- 
tember (33  pages),  contains  all  details  of  advowsons,  presentations,  Episco- 
pal chapels,  for  sale  by  private  treaty,"  etc.,  etc. 


280  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Advertisements  and  transactions  of  the  kind  mentioned  in 
the   note   last   referred   to,  which   with   us   would   undoubt- 
edly be  deemed  in  the  last  degree  scandalous,  have  so  long 
been  common  in  Great  Britain,  that  thej  attract  little  more 
attention  there  than  the  habitual  bestowal  of  offices  for  mere 
partisan  services,  in  disregard  of  personal  litness,  attracts  in 
the  United  States.     Indeed,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  which  is  the 
more  astonished — an  American  when  he  first   learns   that  a 
young  clerk,  the  merest  stranger  from  the   other  end  of  the 
empire,  may,  against  the  common  wishes  of  the  parish,  buy 
his   way   into  a  pulpit  of  the  English  state   church,    or  the 
Englishman  when  for  the  first  time  he  learns  that  a  mere 
politician,  an  inexperienced  stranger  from  the  hills,  may   be 
pushed  by  a  clique  of  partisans  into  a  collectorshij?  over  the 
heads  of   all  those  in  the  custom  house,  who  alone  are  quali- 
fied for  the  office.     If  the  British  example  of  venality  and 
injustice  seem  more  disgraceful  because  in  the  sphere  of  sacred 
things,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that,  before  the  clerk  can  enter 
his  pulpit,  he  must  have  been  approved  by  a  bishop  ;  while 
no  moral  standard  can  be  applied  to  the  politician — partisan 
services  and  prospects  of  services,  by  whatever  means,  being 
the  grounds  of  his  claim.    And  it  would  be  unjust  not  to  men- 
tion that  the  bishop's  standard  of  acceptance  has  been  raised 
higher  and  liigher,  that  mercenary  influence  has  been  limited 
in  various  ways,  so  that,  aided  by  the  better  public  opinion 
which  banished  patronage  from  politics,  and  sustained,  in  later 
years,  by  a  higher  sentiment  within  the  church  itself,*  a  great 
part  of  the  evils  are  now  prevented  which  originally  attended 
the  church  patronage  system.      But  the  sj^stem,  with  its  in- 
lierent  tendency  toward  venality  and  corruption,  survives  ;  and, 
much  as  its  abuses  have  been  mitigated,  it  has  been  a  great 
obstruction  to  the  reform  of  the  civil  service,  of  which  the 
enemies  of  that  reform  have  not  scrupled  to  avail  themselves.' 
This  system  of  purchase  and  sale  of  places  in  the  Church — of 

• 
'  "  While  loyalty  to  the  crown  has  survived  all  the  advances  of  democ- 
racy, the  church  has  awakened  from  a  long  period  of  inaction,  and  by  her 
zeal  and  woodworks  have  recovered  much  of  her  former  influence." — May' a 
Democracy  in  Europe,  vol.  ii.  p.  501. 
"  See,  for  example,  ante,  p.  198. 


CIVIL    SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  2S1 

"  lay  patronage,"  as  it  is  called  by  the  Scotch — has  not  been 
confined  to  the  Church  of  England,  but  has  demoralized  and 
embroiled  both  the  Episcopal  and  the  Presbyterian  churches  in 
Scotland  as  well.     John  Knox  opposed  it  from  the  beginning, 
but  not  successfully.     It  led  even  to  scandalous  acts  of  vio- 
lence.    But  patronage  was  recognized  by  statute,  and  its  spirit 
and  example  for  centuries  contributed  to  the  venaKty,  favor- 
itism, and  corruption  of  all  official  life  in  Scotland.     Growing 
more  obnoxious  as  the  moral  tone  and  independence  of  the 
nation  rose,  and  largely  drawing  into  the  controversy  about 
patronage  the  broader  question  of  state  interference  in  affairs 
of  religion,  it  became  in  the  first  quarter  of  this  century  a 
cause  of  contentions  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  so  serious 
as   to  lead  at  last  to  its  dismemberment.     Tlie  party  which 
resisted  lay  patronage,  and  claimed  the  right  of  the  congrega- 
tion to  deckle  what  minister  it  would  have,  led  by  Dr.  Chal- 
mers,   finally,  in  1834,  secured  a  majority  in  General  Assem- 
bly ;    a  result    followed    by  long-continued    litigation  about 
the  rights   of    patrons,   in  which  both   the    Scotch   and   the 
English  courts  affirmed  a   right  of  private  property  in  church 
patronage  in  Scotland  (analogous  to  that  existing  in  the  English 
Church),   which  no  congregation  was  allowed  to  defeat  by 
rejecting  the  minister  who  had  been  tendered  them  by  the 
patronage-owner.      This  was  too  much  for  the  honesty  and 
manhood  of  a  great  portion  of  the  members  of  the  (state) 
Church  of  Scotland,  and  they  formally  seceded  and  withdrew 
in  1843,  Dr.  Chalmers  being  still  a  leader.      "  The  secession 
embraced  more  than  a  third  of  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  and  afterwards  received  considerable  accessions  of 
strength.  .   .  .  Their  once  crowded  churches  were  surrendered 
to  others,  while  they  went  forth  to  preach  on  the  hillsides,  in 
tents,  barns,  and  stables.     But  they  relied,   ^vith  just  con- 
fidence, upon  the  sympathies  and    liberality  of  their  flocks, 
and  in  a  few  years  the  spires  of  their  free  kirks  were  to  be 
seen  in  most  of  the  parishes  of  Scotland."  '  In  eighteen  years, 
more  than   $26,000,000  were  contributed  for  the  purposes  of 
the  new  organization,  and  the  devotion  and  earnestness  of  its 

'  2  May's  Const.  Hist.,  p.  442. 


282  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

members  have  not  been  less  than  its  material  prosperity  ;  re- 
sults wliich  the  vigorous  growth  of  the  same  faith  in  the 
United  States,  without  State  aid,  patronage,  or  proscription, 
must  have  led  all  thoughtful  minds  to  anticipate.  Here,  there- 
fore, in  a  rebellion  against  the  ecclesiastical  part  of  tlie  old 
spoils  s,ystem,  we  have  the  origin  of  ' '  The  Free  Church  of 
Scotland,"  as  well  as  an  illustration  of  the  cost  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  removing  some  portions  of  that  system  which  the 
principles  of  the  Constitution  practically  made  impossible  in 
the  United  States.  The  fate  of  so  much  of  that  despotic,  old 
system  as  still  lingers  in  the  more  worldly  divisions  of  the 
Scotch  Church  and  in  the  Church  of  England — whether  any 
thing  less  than  disfranchisement  can  make  an  end  of  that  sys- 
tem in  Great  Britain — whether  it  be  destined  to  survive  the 
longest  among  the  state  church  Tories  of  the  Old  World  in  the 
domain  of  religion,  or  among  the  republican  freemen  of  the 
New  World  in  the  domain  of  politics — these  must  remain  in- 
teresting questions  of  the  future.  Certainly,  few  things  are 
more  anomalous,  in  the  public  affairs  of  the  English-speaking 
people,  than  the  facts  that  the  champions,  of  the  mediaeval  and 
despotic  spirit  on  one  side  of  the  Atlantic  should  be  defending 
whatever  there  remains  of  the  old  system  of  patronage,  favor- 
itism, and  proscription  in  the  avowed  interests  of  royalty  and 
a  state  church  ;  at  the  same  time  that  the  self-proclaimed 
champions  of  republican  institutions,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  are  defending  whatever  of  the  same  old  system  there 
survives,  in  the  pretended  interest  of  democracy,  liberty,  and 
justice.  l!Tor  is  this  contrast  less  significant  when  considered  as 
illustrating  the  extent  to  wdiich  provision  may  be  made  against 
evils  of  the  same  kind,  in  one  direction,  while,  with  some- 
thing like  unconsciousness,  the  people  allow  them  to  flourish 
in  full  view  in  another  direction  ;  for  the  people  of  Great 
Britain  went  on  removing  abuses  in  the  civil  administration 
without  their  sense  of  the  enormity  of  such  abuses  in  the 
affairs  of  the  state  church  being  very  much  increased  ;  and  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  on  the  other  hand,  look  upon  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution,  which  have  protected  them  from 
these  latter  abuses,  without  much  reflecting  that  its  authors 
could  never  have  imagined  that  like  abuses  would  grow  in  the 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  283 

civil  administration.  Standing  in  tlie  presence  of  chnrcli 
patronage,  which,  if  allowed,  would  speedily  sink  any  religious 
organization  in  the  United  States,  Englishmen  are  filled  with 
horror  at  our  political  abuses,  and  grow  loyal  and  patriotic 
over  the  virtues  of  the  civil  administration  of  their  country  ; 
while,  standing  amidst  civil  abuses  that  have  been  impossible, 
for  nearly  half  a  century  in  Great  Britain,  Americans  are 
amazed  that  the  offices  of  religion  should  there  be  in  the  mar- 
ket as  merchandise,  and  that  men  should  be  able  to  buy  their 
places  as  ministers  in  the  temples  of  divine  worship. 

Tliere  is  another  branch  of  public  service  in  Great  Britain 
which,  though  not  literally  within  the  scope  of  this  chapter, 
or  perhaps  of  the  present  work,  yet  affords  striking  illustra- 
tions of  the  spirit  of  the  new  system  and  of  the  obstacles  it  has 
overcome  ;  nor  is  it  without  importance  as  showing  the  decay 
of  patronage  and  favoritism  in  Great  Britain  during  the  period 
in  which  they  have  been  grooving  in  the  United  States.  We 
have  seen  that  under  the  despotic  kings  there  Avas  no  distinc- 
tion between  civil  and  military  officers  as  to  the  conditions  of 
their  appointment,  government,  or  removal ;  that  James  IT. 
as  unliesitatingly  turned  out  colonels  and  generals  as  he  did 
collectors  or  heads  of  bureaus,  for  mere  political  or  household 
reasons  ;  that  "Walpole  denied  all  grounds  of  distinction  be- 
tween civil  and  military  officers  as  to  removal ;  that  George 
III.  deprived  General  Conway,  Colonel  Barre,  and  other  mili- 
tary officers  of  their  commands  for  favoring  the  jJatriotic  cause 
in  America,  and  that  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  the  king 
was  induced  to  promise  that  military  men  should  in  the  future 
be  treated  as  beyond  removal  for  mere  political  reasons.  But 
while  the  king  forebore  any  extreme  application  of  his  pro- 
scriptive  theory  to  military  affairs,  appointments  in  the  army 
and  navy  became  a  part  of  the  patronage  monopoly  of  mem- 
bers of  Parliament.  There  had  also  been  growing  up  a  system 
under  which  the  war  offices  of  the  nation,  just  like  the  minis- 
terial places  in  the  Church,  were  the  subjects  of  open  barter 
and  of  bargain  and  sale  for  money.  This  system  spread  until 
under  the  name  of  "purchase"  it  appears  to  liave  embraced 
almost  the  whole  military  (and  no  small  part  of  the  naval)  ser- 
vice of  the  Empire.     Army  purchase,  like  Church  patronage, 


284  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

was  recognized  and  protected  by  law  ;  and  when  it  was  finally 
brought  to  an  end  (since  the  order  for  open  competition  in 
1870),  it  was  on  the  basis  of  an  allowance  or  compensation  hx 
money  for  all  commissions  then  held  by  purchase.  While 
there  was  much  in  the  spirit  and  exigencies  of  military  life 
and  in  the  high  demands  of  national  sentiment  that  put  some 
check  ujjon  the  grosser  abuses  to  which  so  demoralizing  a  system 
tended,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  could  hardly  fail  to  bring  many 
unworthy  persons  into  military  office,  to  be  a  serious  obstacle 
to  the  introduction  of  the  merit  system  into  civil  service,  or  to 
add  greatly  to  all  that  was  venal  and  suspicious  in  official  life. 
No  examinations  were  provided  and  no  effective  standard  of 
qualiiications  applied  as  against  the  purchaser  of  the  office. 
Everywhere  there  was  only  a  gross  competition  of  money  and 
influence,  in  which  personal  worth  had  little  favor  and  no  aid  in 
the  methods  of  government.  It  was  this  military  systeni 
which  we  had  before  us  when  our  Constitution  was  formed  : 
but  we  also  had  before  us  the  experience  of  the  revolutionary 
war.  Our  statesmen  had  seen  what  caused  them  to  feel  the 
necessity  of  having  military  officers  adequately  instructed  for 
the  practical  duties  of  their  calling.  It  was  this  conviction 
which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  the  Military  Academy 
at  "West  Point  in  1802,  and  in  fixing  a  literary  qualification 
for  admission  to  it  in  1812.  In  foresight  and  in  patriotic  disin- 
terestedness, the  American  Congress  was  then  far  in  advance  of 
the  British  Parliament.  The  law  creating  this  school  provided 
for  no  patronage  in  nominating  cadets  on  tlie  part  of  mem- 
bers of  Congress,  for  they  were  to  be  selected  by  the  Presi- 
dent ;  and  its  whole  spirit  was  hostile  to  making  merchandise 
of  military  commissions.  England  had  then  no  such  school, 
and  her  military  system  was,  during  the  first  quarter  of  the 
century,  on  a  low  moral  plane  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
United  States.  But  a  change  was  soon  to  appear  in  both 
countries,  which  has  resulted  in  contrasts  full  of  significance. 
It  was  not  long  before  miHtary  instruction  was  provided  for  in 
Great  Britain,  and  the  claims  of  personal  merit  began  to  rise 
over  Parliamentary  patronage  and  the  opportunities  of  wealth. 
The  greater  abuses  of  the  purcliase  system  were  one  after 
another  remedied.      Kigid  examinations  were  provided  for 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  285 

admission  to  the  military  schools  ;  and  at  last  Parliamentary 
patronage  has  been  compelled  to  yield  to  open  competition  as 
the  key  that  opens  the  gates  of  those  institutions  from  whose 
graduates  generally  the  army  officers  are  selected.  I  need  not 
here  recount  any  of  the  facts  to  which  I  have  already  referred 
(or  shall  refer),  showing  that,  in  India  and  in  the  home  ser- 
vice, membei*s  of  Parliament  have  lost  their  patronage  of  nom- 
inating cadets  for  either  the  naval  or  the  military  schools,  and 
that  a  fair  public  contest  9f  merit — open  competition  before 
the  Civil  Service  Commission — wins  the  cadetships  and  gives 
a  better  class  of  candidates  for  the  regular  army  and  navy.  It 
would  seem  that  the  same  method  guards  the  official  places  in 
what  we  should  call  the  militia  service.  Parliamentary  pat- 
ronage and  purchase  in  the  war  service  of  the  nation  have 
thus  died  and  been  buried  together.  In  the  United  States, 
however,  the  tendency  has  been  in  the  other  direction.  The 
partisan  spirit  that  created  the  spoils  system  was  equally  favor- 
able to  the  disastrous  growth  of  Congressional  patronage.  The 
first  step  toward  Congressiojial  control  over  cadet  appoint- 
ments was  made  in  1843,  when  it  was  provided  that  one  cadet 
should  be  taken  from  each  Congressional  district.  In  viola- 
tion of  the  provisions  of  the  law  which  vested  the  nomination 
of  cadets  in  the  President,  membei-s  of  Congress  took  their 
selection  to  themselves,  and  they  have  since  maintained  that 
usurpation,  though  the  statutes  still  provide  that  ' '  they  shall 
be  appointed  by  the  President. ' '  ' 

In  the  law  providing  for  cadet  appointments  in  the  ]^aval 
School,  enacted  in  1862,'  we  find  the  claims  of  this  growing 
Congressional  patronage  system  more  significantly  expressed. 
The  "  number  allowed  at  the  Academy  shall  be  two  for  every 
memher''''  (of  Congress),  says  the  statute,  and  the  President 
shall  select  two  from  the  District  of  Columbia  and  ten  at 
large,  and  "the  President  shall  also  be  allov^ed  three  yearly 
appointments  of  midshipmen  ...  to  be  selected  from  boys 
enlisted  in  the  Kavy.  The  Revised  Statutes  of  1875  '  require 
the  Secretaiy  of  the  Xavy  to  notify  the  member  of  any  vacancy 

'  See  Revised  Statutes  U.  S.,  §  1315.         '  Laws  1862,  chap.  183,  §  11. 
»  §  1514. 

19 


286  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

in  his  district,  and  declare  that  ' '  the  nomination  shall  be  made 
on  the  recommendation  of  the  member^"  and  permits  the 
President  to  appoint  one  cadet  from  the  District  of  Columbia 
and  ten  at  large. 

Here  we  see  the  advance  of  a  system  of  legislative  patronage 
unknown  to  our  politics  in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and 
which  was  abandoned  in  Great  Britain  after  long  experience  of 
its  disastrous  consequences  ;  and  a  new  spirit  with  a  new  claim 
has  grown  into  such  domineering  tones  and  assumptions,  that 
the  small  portion  of  the  constitutional  authority  left  to  the 
President — the  selection  of  eleven  out  of  near  four  hundred 
cadets — is  mentioned  as  being  what  is  ' '  allowed  ' '  to  him,  and 
the  nomination  by  members  is  sj)oken  of  as  if  it  were  a  per- 
quisite and  right  as  legitimate  and  as  absolute  as  any  claim  of 
Parliamentary  or  State  Church  patronage  ever  set  up  by  a 
member  of  Parliament  in  the  most  corrupt  and  proscriptive 
periods  of  British  history.  These  and  other  encroachments  of 
the  Legislature  upon  the  Executive  have  attracted  the  attention 
of  thoughtful,  foreign  writers.  ,  "A  legislative  chamber  is 
greedy  and  covetous ;  it  acquires  as  much,  it  concedes  as 
little  as  possible ;  .  .  .  the  law-making  faculty,  the  most 
comprehensive  of  the  imperial  faculties,  is  its  instrument ; 
it  will  take  the  Administration  if  it  can  take  it.  Tried  by 
their  own  aims,  the  founders  of  the  United  States  Constitu- 
tion were  wise  in  excluding  the  Ministers  from  Congress.'" 
In  the  facts  recited,  we  see,  not  merely  how  law-makers  can 
' '  take ' '  patronage,  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  government,  which  requires  that  the  legisla- 
tive and  executive  functions  shall  be  kept  distinct,  but  we 
also  see  regulations  for  apportionment,  division,  and  enjoy- 
ment laid  down  as  formally  and  with  as  little  disguise  as  in 
any  rules  of  a  prize  court  for  sliaring  the  spoils  of  war,  or  in 
any  customs  of  IN^ewcastle's  or  "Walpole's  "Patronage  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  "  for  sharing  the  spoils  of  peace. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  here,  as  in  Great  Britain  before 

"  Bagehot's  "  English  Constitution,"  pp.  92  and  93.  It  is  Mr.  Bagehot's 
view  that  Secretaries  coming  into  Congress  would  increase  the  power  of  that 
body  over  the  Executive  ;  and  lie  feels  the  necessity  of  not  increasing  that 
peril,  much  as,  in  the  abstract,  he  favors  their  presence. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  287 

the  new  system  became  general,  pul>lic  opinion  tends  more  and 
more  to  compel  members  to  band  their  cadetships  over  to  open 
competition;  and  here  as  there  it  seems  clear  that  such  compe- 
tition secures  a  superior  class  of  students  ;'  but  it  would  carry 
me  too  far  from  my  subject  to  present  the  proofs  on  these 
points,  and  they  would  but  add  another  to  the  many  exam- 
ples of  our  repeating  continually,  for  good  or  for  evil,  the  ex- 
perience of  the  older  country. 

'  Twenty-two  years  ago,  upon  the  first  experiment  of  competition  for  the 
selection  of  military  cadets,  we  find  ^Ir.  Mill  (Representative  Government, 
p.  110,  edition  1857)  saying  :  "  I  am  credibly  informed  that  in  the  military 
academy  at  Woolwich  the  competition-cadets  are  as  superior  to  those  ad- 
mitted on  the  old  system  of  nominations  in  these  respects  (bodily  activity)  as 
in  all  others."  And  the  report  of  the  U.  S.  Civil  Service  Commission,  made 
in  April,  1874,  uses  this  language  on  the  same  subject  :  "  So  unsatisfactory 
had  been  all  other  methods  of  nomination  that  the  official  circulars  from  the 
Secretary  of  War,  under  which  this  courtesy  is  regularly  extended,  recog- 
nizing the  precedents  of  disinterested  members  of  Congress,  now  contain  a 
notice  that  'competitive  examinations,' etc.,  have  been  introduced,  'with 
results  satisfactory,'  as  the  basis  of  these  nominations  ;  and  in  the  Xaval 
School,  also,  the  advantages  of  competitive  examinations,  induced  by  the  ex- 
ample of  such  examinations  under  the  civil  service  rules,  have  still  further 
supplanted  the  old  methods.  The  facts,  which  we  find  confirmed  by  the 
highest  authority,  are  stated  by  the  editor  of  a  Washington  journal  as  follows  : 

"  '  The  position  of  cadet  engineer  being  open  to  any  youth  of  proper  age 
and  proficiency,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  received  last  summer  a  very 
large  number  of  applications,  and  in  order  to  secure  the  most  efficient  he 
made  the  examination  competitive.  The  wisdom  of  this  course  has  fully 
proved  itself  in  the  second  class  of  cadet-engineers,  now  at  the  Academy, 
irhkli  has  been  declared  both  vientally  and  physically  superior  to  any  that  pre- 
ceded it.'  "—The  Chronicle,  February  14, 1874. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

SOME   PEACTICAL  TENDENCIES    AND   EELATIONS    OF    THE    KEFOEMED 

METHOD. 

Popular  education  advanced  with  administrative  reform.  —  The  public 
schools. — Examinations  for  women. — Interest  in  politics  unabated. — The 
franchise  extended. — Crime  decreased; — Sanitary  administration. — Salaries 
and  economical  results. — Relation  of  the  new  system  to  tenure  of  office,  to 
official  fidelity,  and  to  efficiency. 

The  history  of  tlie  growth  of  the  reform  sentiment  and  of 
the  new  methods  to  which  it  has  given  birth  has  to  a  large  ex- 
tent explained  their  practical  effect.  That  they  have  been  a 
victory  of  public  virtue  and  intelhgence  over  corruption  and 
incompetency,  of  common  justice  over  special  privileges  and 
feudal  customs,  of  equal  rights  and  opportunities  over  official 
favoritism  and  partisan  tyranny,  and  especially  of  the  gi-eat 
cause  of  elementary  education  over  the  exclusiveness  and  the 
selfish  hostility  of  the  aristocratic  classes, — are  results  almost 
too  plain  for  further  comment.  In  one  aspect,  the  reform  in 
its  later  stages  may  be  looked  upon  as  an  illustration  of  a 
great  movement  in  the  public  conscience  and  thought,  which 
marks  an  epoch  in  British  history  ;  finding  kindred  exjiression 
in  laws,  of  rare  beneficence  and  wisdom,  for  the  jjrotection  of 
the  poor  and  humble  in  mines,  shops,  and  factories  ;  for  the 
sujDpression  of  vice  and  crime  ;  for  the  security  of  life,  health, 
and  virtue ;  for  the  acquisition  of  land,  education,  and  com- 
mon rights  ;  for  the  extension  of  suffrage,  and  the  purity  and 
responsibility  of  public  life  in  various  ways.  In  another  as- 
pect, it  presents  itself  as  a  remarkable  concentration  of  public 
intelligence  and  scrutiny  upon  a  method  for  elevating  the 
standard  of  official  duty  and  capacity,  above  what  might  be  ex- 
pected from  the  general  condition  of  the  people  ;  and,  wdiere- 
by  political   contests,    no   longer   mere  scrambles  for   office, 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  289 

are  made  to  turn  upon  great  principles  and  good  administra- 
tion ;  so  that  the  verj  processes  of  governing  are  made  foun- 
tains of  strength  to  the  conservative  forces  of  society.  The 
early  reformers  naturally  expected  that  popular  instruction 
would  be  stimulated  by  their  work,  and  this  opinion  was,  we 
find,  soon  shared  by  practical  statesmen  at  the  head  of  the 
government.  "  I  hope  we  shall  give  a  great  stimulus  to 
primary  education  by  holding  out  this  large  number  of  re- 
wards .  .  .  for  those  who  excel  in  competition. "  '  That 
hope  was  not  disappointed.  I  have  space  for  only  the  most 
meagre  illustration  of  the  marvellous  strides  "  which  have  been 
made  during  the  past  few  years  in  common-school  education, 
so  long  shamefully  neglected  by  the  ruling  class  in  Great 
Britain.  It  was  in  the  same  year  (1870)  when  open  competi- 
tion was  introduced,  that  school  boards,  sustained  by  local 
rates  (which  had  been  long  resisted  by  the  State  Churcli  and 
the  privileged  classes),  were  for  the  first  time  provided  for  in 
all  the  districts  of  the  country. 

Competent  observers  think  the  new  school  system  to  be  in 
some  respects  unsurpassed,  and  no  well  informed  person  will 
deny  that  parts  of  its  administration  deserve  our  serious  study.' 
The  vigor  with  which  popular  education  has  advanced,  since 
1870,  makes  its  own  suggestion  as  to  its  being  aided  by  some 
new  and  powerful  cause — not  so  much,  perhaps,  by  com- 
petition for  the  public  service  as  the  ultimate  force,  as 
by  the  new  spirit  which  demanded  both  competition  and 
schools — and  which  now  stands  behind  and  stimulates  edu- 
cation. The  election  for  the  London  School  Board  in  the 
autumn  of  1870  is  said  to  have  aroused  more  interest  than 


*  Evidence  of  the  Chancellor  of  Exchequer,  Pari.  Rep.  1873,  p.  231, 
Vol.  3. 

'"  In  your  elementary  schools  you  are  in  advance  of  us.  .  .  .  Ten  years 
ago  we  were  a  long  way  behind,  but  we  are  improving  rapidly,  and  if  you 
intend  to  keep  before  us,  you  will  have  to  work  hard. " — Impressions  of  Amer- 
ica, by  Bet.  R.  W.  Dale,  1878,  p.  163. 

'  Several  able  women  have  been  elected  members  of  the  London  School 
Board,  and  their  services  have  been  found  invaluable — a  kind  of  member- 
ship not  so  compatible  with  our  partisan  system.  The  new  system  of 
cumulative  voting  for  school  officers  excludes  the  absolute  domination  of 
either  party  in  school  management. 


290  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

any  municipal  election  ever  held  in  the  metropolis.  Be- 
tween 1870  and  1875,  that  Board  alone  completed  53  school 
houses,  at  a  cost  of  nearly  $3,500,000  ;  and  in  1875  it  had  80 
others  in  the  course  of  construction,  on  which  more  than 
$2,800,000  had  been  expended.  Attendance  in  the  schools  is 
compulsory.  In  1874,  there  were  77,985  official  notices  served 
to  attend  ;  4681  persons  were  convicted  for  neglect  in  that 
regard,  and  41,697  parents  were  required  to  appear  and  show 
cause  w^hy  their  children  were  absent  from  school.  A  part  of 
the  expenses  of  destitute  children  attending  school  are  paid 
from  the  public  funds,  so  that  their  poverty  may  not  prevent 
their  education.'  Tlie  popular  support  of  education  advanced 
so  rapidly  that,  in  1876,  compulsory  attendance  was  made 
general  by  act  of  Parliament.  It  appears^  that  the  rapid 
spread  of  elementary  instruction  among  tlie  people  continues  un- 
abated. In  England,  the  attendance  upon  the  public  schools 
has  increased  sixty  per  cent  in  five  years,  and  in  Scotland  forty- 
two  per  cent  in  three  years.  In  the  city  of  Birmingham,  it  in- 
creased one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  per  cent  between  1871  and 
1876.  The  success  of  the  higher  institutions  of  learning,  in 
testing  capacity  by  examinations,  would  seem  to  have  originally 
suggested  the  practicabiHty  of  such  tests  for  the  public  service. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  but  the  debt  has  been  many 
times  repaid  by  the  greater  lionor  and  profit  whicli  the  action 
of  the  government  has  conferred  upon  learning  in  every  grade. 
What  elevates  and  widens  the  base  of  couree  raises  and 
strengthens  the  whole  pyramid  of  knowledge.  It  has  not 
therefore  been  in  the  lower  range  of  learning  alone  that  exam- 
inations for  the  public  service  have  given  new  vitality  to  pop- 
ular education.  The  example  helped  to  stimulate  the  higher 
schools  and  even  the  universities  to  a  more  active  life.  Much 
higher  qualifications  liave  also  been  required,  within  the  last  few 
years,  than  formerly,  for  admission  to  the  bar  or  to  j^ractice  as 
an  attorney  or  solicitor.  The  right  to  practice  as  a  doctor 
or  surgeon,  or  to  carry  on  the  business  of  an  apotliecary  or 
medical  chemist,  has,  in  the  same  period,  been  condition- 
ed on  higher  attainments.     In  1865,  Oxford  and  Cambridge 

■  Firth's  Municipal  London,  p.  443-457. 

"Report  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  1878,  p.  CLXIV.-CLXIX. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  291 

(which  had  before  conducted  local  examinations  for  young 
men  engaged  in  literary  and  scientific  studies)  extended  them 
to  young  women,  not  with  a  view  of  admitting  them  as  stu- 
dents, but  of  stimulating  and  rewarding  home  studies  by  public 
encouragement.  Other  institutions  have  followed  these  exam- 
ples. In  1865,  only  126  young  women  were  candidates,  but 
in  1875  examinations  were  held  at  fifty-six  different  places, 
and  there  were  1552  female  candidates  '  examined.  The  grow- 
ing spirit  of  justice  and  liberty,  within  the  same  period,  has 
opened  the  public  museums,  libraries,  and  galleries  freely  to 
the  people,  and  made  the  Kensington  Museum  the  centre  of  a 
vast  system  of  instruction  in  the  practical  arts  now  being  given 
in  numerous  places  throughout  the  British  Islands. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  tlie  taking  of  the 
corrupt  elements  and  the  venal  prizes  out  of  party  contests  in 
Great  Britain  has  in  no  sense  weakened  the  wholesome  public 
interest  in  elections.  Parties  have  never  stood  more  firmly  by 
their  principles  or  maintained  more  vigorous  contests  at  the 
polls  than  since  these  contests  have  ceased  to  control  nomina- 
tions, appointments,  promotions,  or  removals.  Indeed,  it  has 
been  during  the  same  period,  in  which  that  service  has  been 
gradually  raised  above  corruption  and  partisanship,  that  the 
English  people  have  most  vigorously  and  successfully  con- 
tended for  an  enlarged  suffrage  and  for  the  ballot.  The  same  re- 
fonning  spirit  which  abolished  compulsory  church  rates  in  1868, 
disestablished  the  Irish  Church  in  18G9,  opened  the  public 
service  freely  to  merit  in  1870,  swept  away  religious  tests  for 
admissions  to  ofliees  and  degrees  in  the  uni verities,  and  sup- 
pressed the  sale  of  army  commissions  in  1871, — finally,  in  the 
last-named  year,  secured  to  the  people  the  invaluable  privilege 
of  voting  by  ballot.  So  far  from  there  being  indifference  to 
elections,  the  right  of  voting  is  now  held  and  exercised  by  a 
larger  proportion  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain  than  at  any 
other  period  of  her  history. 

It  is  a  point  of  interest  to  know  what  effect  the  new  methods 
for  selecting  executive  ofticers  have  had  ujxin  the  amount  of 

'  Harvard  University,  among  our  own  institutions,  five  years  ago  oflfj^red 
American  women  the  benefit  of  sucli  examinations  upon  tlie  English  prin- 
ciple, and  they  are  being  continued  with  increasing  success. 


292  CIVIL   SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAEST. 

crime  and  the  administration  of  justice  ;  but  I  cannot  spare 
space  for  more  than  the  briefest  illustration.  The  fact  has 
been  that  crime  and  criminal  arrests  have  been  steadily  de- 
creasing in  Great  Britain,  as  corruption  has  disappeared  from 
her  politics.  London  is,  perhaps,  a  fair  example  of  the  whole 
country  ;  and  there  a  recent  English  writer  asserts  :,'  "It  is 
satisfactory  to  notice  that  crime  in  the  metropolis  is  on  the  de- 
crease, not  merely  proportionally,  but  actually  ;"  but  it  is  not 
satisfactory  to  us  to  be  compelled  also  to  notice  that  the  num- 
ber of  crimes  and  criminal  arrests  in  London  are  less  in  each 
year  than  they  are  in  the  city  of  New  York,  which  has  only 
about  one-third  the  population  of  London.^ 

It  would  require  too  much  space  to  give  the  facts  necessary 
to  illustrate  in  any  general  way  the  efliciency  with  which  the 
laws  are  now  executed  in  Great  Britain.  It  must  suffice  to 
make  a  simple  reference  to  sanitary  administration,  which,  as 
much  as  any  other,  measures  the  ability  and  fidelity  of 
officials.  New  York  city  has  a  health  administration  of  unsur- 
passed efficiency  in  this  country  (considering  the  partisan 
abuses  Avhich  cripple  it  and  which  demoralize  the  whole  city 
government  on  which  it  depends) ;  but  the  more  favorable 
political  conditions  of  London  have,  in  later  years,  enabled  its 
health  officers — despite  its  slums  of  fearful  vice  and  ignorance 
which  have  come  down  from  generations  that  knew  neither 
cleanliness  nor  schools — to  reduce  its  ratio  of  disease  and  death 
below  that  of  the  city  of  New  York  ;  and,  by  reason  of  able 
health  officers,  the  death  rate  of  Bombay — that  ancient  haunt 
and  breeding-place  of  plagues,  leprosies,  and  choleras — with 
its  population  of  650,000  of  all  races  and  religions  under  the 
sun — seems  to  have  been  reduced  below  that  of  Baltimore, 
Richmond,  New  Orleans,  and  other  American  cities.  Per- 
haps the  greatest  sanitary  reforms  ever  yet  undertaken  in  the 
world  are  those  which  have  been  carried  forward  in  Glasgow 

'  Firth's  Municipal  London,  1876,  p.  431. 

"  The  number  of  arrests  in  London  in  1869  was  73,951.  In  1870  it  was 
71,269,  and  has  since  decreased.  In  1870  the  number  arrested  in  New  York 
city  was  75,692.  In  1871  it  was  84.514,  and  in  1875  it  was  84,399.  I  have 
not  the  exact  figures  to  make  the  comparison  since,  but  the  ratio  has  not 
materially  varied. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  293 

and  Edinburgli  witliin  the  last  twelve  years.  The  artisaDs' 
and  laborers'  dwellings  improvement  acts  of  1875  are  being 
carried  into  effect  with  an  official  ability  and  fidelity  worthy 
the  spirit  they  embody  ;  and  the  tenement  house  law  (and  all 
the  other  most  efficient  sanitary)  statutes  of  New  York  city 
are  in  large  part  based  on  British  precedents.' 

It  would  require  a  whole  chapter  to  do  justice  to  the 
economical  results  of  the  new  system.  It  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  make  due  allowance  for  the  different  rates  of  wages  in 
the  two  countries  so  as  to  show  with  exactness  the  relative 
cost  of  the  merit  and  partisan  systems.  Besides,  as  the  Brit- 
ish officers  have  a  graded  salary,  which  increases  with  years 
of  service,  and  is  followed  (after  ten  years  of  service)  by  a  re- 
tiring allowance,  the  relative  cost  is  not  shown  by  a  mere 
comparison  of  salaries.  No  argument,  however,  is  needed  to 
prove  that,  as  the  respectability  and  honor  of  the  public  service 
is  raised,  it  becomes  more  attractive.  Men  will  work  for  less 
compensation,  when  their  tenure  is  secure  during  good  be- 
havior and  their  position  commands  public  respect.  It  has 
already  been  shown  that,  by  reason  of  securing  a  better  class 
of  officers,  a  much  smaller  number  has  been  found  adequate. 
Facts  might  be  cited,  could  I  give  space  for  them,  which 
would  show  a  great  saving  in  the  cost  of  administration.*  It 
must  suffice,  as  illustrations,  to  state  that  the  government 
clerks — clerks  corresponding  to  those  to  whom  we  pay  $900  a 
year,  begin  on  a  salary  of  from  $400  to  $450  a  year,  and  that 
the  police  of  London    are  paid  salaries   that   are  not  much 

'  38  and  39  Vict. ,  chaps.  36  and  49.  These  are  most  comprehensive  stat- 
utes, and  in  their  elaborate  provisions  for  securing  sanitary  protection  to  the 
homes  of  the  poor,  they  go  far  beyond  anything  attempted  in  this  country. 
And  another  act  of  the  same  year  (;^  and  39  Vict. ,  chap.  55),  which  fills  153 
pages  of  the  statute— being  a  general  public  health  law — in  the  variety,  benev- 
olence, and  breadth  of  its  provisions,  probably  transcends  the  united  body  of 
all  our  State  and  Congressional  legislation  on  sanitary  subjects.  So  wise 
and  just  provisions,  in  the  special  interest  of  the  humble  and  the  feeble, 
would  not  seem  to  be  most  fit  to  be  monopolized  by  a  monarchy  ;  and 
at  a  time  when  our  legislators.  State  and  national,  are  so  anxiously  debating 
sanitary  subjects,  in  aspects  that  have  long  since  entered  into  British  admin- 
istration, I  venture  to  depart  a  little  from  my  subject  to  draw  attention  to 
these  matters  of  supreme  importance. 

*  For  some  illustrations,  see  Chap.  XII.,  pp.  147-150. 


294  CIVIL'  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

more  than  one  half  those  paid  poHcemen  in  tlie  city  of  Kew 
York. 

The  method  of  coming  into  the  service  upon  the  basis  of 
merit  has  not  necessarily  anything  to  do  with  the  tenure  of 
office,  tliough  its  spirit  is  of  course  utterly  hostile  to  removals 
except  for  good  cause,  and  for  such  removals  the  British  sys- 
tem gives  ample  authority.  The  moment  that  open  compe- 
tition is  made  the  door  of  entrance  to  the  service,  there  is 
little  pressure  to  put  men  out  in  order  to  get  others  in.  It  is 
far  too  uncertain  who  will  win  the  place  made  vacant,  to  make 
the  attack  attractive  to  office-brokers  or  place-hunters.  So 
long  as  every  executive  officer  having  the  right  of  nomination 
is  exposed  to  the  menace  of  congressional  influence,  and  all  the 
gates  of  the  public  service  stand  wide  open  to  the  siege  of 
partisan  organizations,  it  will,  I  am  persuaded,  hardly  be 
possible  to  establish  any  wise  tenure  of  office  ;  but  as  soon  as 
an  effective  test  of  merit  can  be  placed  at  these  gates,  the  vast 
army  of  interested  politicians  now  so  obstructive  will  no  longer 
be  able  to  foist  their  favorites  upon  the  Treasury,  and  they  will 
therefore  no  longer  take  the  trouble  to  oppose  a  just  and 
economical  official  tenure.  It  will  be  only  after  corrupt  and 
partisan  ways  of  getting  into  public  places  have  been  closed, 
that  we  shall  be  able  to  consider  the  subject  disinterestedly  and 
calmly,  and  thus  be  in  a  fair  condition  to  decide  for  how  long 
a  time,  or  until  w^hat  age,  in  the  several  branches  of  the  ser- 
vice, it  is  for  the  public  interest  to  retain  an  official.  There 
does  not  seem,  in  view  of  British  experience,  to  be  any  great 
promise  of  usefulness  in  giving  much  attention  to  that  subject 
at  present  ;  though  if  we  could  return  to  our  original  system, 
by  repealing  the  laws  which  Hmit  the  term  of  collectors,  post- 
masters, surveyors,  and  various  other  subordinates,  to  four 
years,  we  should  get  rid  of  many  demoralizing  contests,  and 
should  soon  gain  that  experience  that  would  enable  us  to  decide 
upon  some  tenure  more  inviting  to  worthy  persons,  and  hence 
more  economical  for  the  government — upon  some  tenure  that 
would  not  bring  on  a  new  contest  for  existence,  by  the  time 
an  officer  has  gained  experience  enough  to  know  his  duties. 

No  one  can  go  over  the  British  investigations  on  the  sub- 
ject, or  come  in  contact  with  British  officials,  without  being 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  295 

impressed  with  tlie  need  and  the  importance  of  some  fixed 
rules  as  to  the  age  most  fit  and  advantageous  for  entering  and 
leaving  the  pubHc  service — and  hence,  as  to  the  proper  tenure 
of  a  subordinate,  executive  ofiicer.  The  question  is  one  which 
equally  concerns  public  economy  and  oflicial  morality.  So 
long  as  the  absurd  theory  of  "rotation  in  ofiice" — a  ciiange 
for  the  sake  of  a  change — a  theory  that  could  not  bring  about 
the  justice  to  which  it  appeals,  even  if  oflicial  tenure  was  for 
only  a  single  day — or  the  partisan  theory  of  appointment  and 
removals — move  the  majority,  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  any  prac- 
tical result  from  inquiring  what  a  proper  regard  for  efliciency, 
economy,  or  official  fidelity  demand.  I  have  no  space  to  ade- 
quately present  the  reasoning  on  the  subject  to  be  found  in 
British  documents,  and  yet  I  am  not  wilhng  to  dismiss  them  in 
silence.  What  can  be  plainer  than  this — that  when  an  officer  or 
clerk  has  no  assurance  that  great  capacity  or  industry  in  his  place 
will  either  prevent  his  removal,  ensure  his  promotion,  or  even 
protect  him  from  assessments,  he  is  deprived  of  the  strongest 
motives  to  usefulness,  and  is  naturally  filled  with  a  sense  of  the 
injustice  of  his  government  ?  To  be  most  efficient  he  needs  to 
study  the  duties  of  his  position  ;  but  why  should  he  labor  be- 
yond the  needs  of  to-day,  when  to-morrow  he  may  be  sent 
home  in  disgrace,  vathout  cause  and  without  trial,  or  be 
humiliated  by  seeing  an  official  or  partisan  favorite,  every 
way  inferior  to  himself,  put  over  his  head  ?  lie  has  not  even 
the  motives  to  good  conduct  which  the  government  of  all  the 
more  enlightened  States  throw  around  the  inmates  of  their 
prisons,  who  are  allowed  by  good  conduct  to  reduce  their  term 
of  confinement.  This  precariousness — the  constant  sense  of 
uncertainty  and  peril  which  it  produces — is,  I  am  persuaded, 
in  two  ways  the  cause  of  great  pecuniary  expense  to  the  gov- 
ernment ;  first,  by  compelling  it  to  pay  higher  salaries,  as  an 
inducement  to  competent  persons  to  enter  so  uninviting  a  ser- 
\nee,  and  next,  by  compelling  it  to  employ  a  greater  number 
of  officials,  because  those  it  has  are  without  the  higher  in- 
ducements to  exertion,  and  are  distracted  by  efforts  to  protect 
themselves  against  dismissals,  and  to  secure  promotions  by 
infiuencc.  It  hardly  need  be  added  that  such  utter  uncer- 
tainty of  tenure — the  general  conviction  it  produces  that  when 


296  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

a  place  in  the  service  is  forfeited  nothing  stable  or  reliable  is 
lost — tend  to  weaken  the  inducements  to  honesty  and  fidelity. 
When  a  public  officer  or  clerk  feels  that,  if  he  be  faithful,  he 
can  hold  his  place,  with  an  increasing  salary,  so  long  as  he  is 
competent,  and  that  if  he  is  especially  efficient,  he  will  be 
promoted,  it  is  almost  too  plain  for  observation  that  he  is 
bound  to  honesty  and  fidelity  by  ties  far  stronger  than  the  man 
can  feel  who  has  before  him  nothing  but  a  dreary,  dead  level 
of  uncertainty — a  hold  of  his  place  utterly  frail  and  precarious 
— liable  on  any  day  to  be  broken  by  an  order  which  arrests  his 
income,  and — if  it  does  not  suggest  his  incompetency  or 
infidelity — for  that  very  reason  must  proclaim  the  arbitrary 
injustice  of  his  country.  No  one,  I  think,  can  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  very  different  feelings  cherished  by  those  in 
the  civil  service,  toward  tlie  government,  under  these  con- 
trasted systems,  without  a  strong  conviction  that  the  pride  of 
place  and  the  sense  of  justice  and  gratitude  which  the  one  de- 
velops and  the  other  destroys,  are  subjects  well  worthy  the 
attention  of  statesmen  ;  and  I  shall  take  occasion  to  more  ade- 
quately present  the  significant  fact  that,  in  Great  Britain,  those 
in  the  subordinate  service  hold  their  places  and  serve  the  gov- 
ernment with  pride,  always  certain  that  a  knowledge  of  their 
emj)loyment  by  the  government  will  advance  rather  than  pre- 
judice their  standing  in  public  estimation. 

It  should  be  mentioned  that,  under  British  laws,  no  limit 
but  incompetency — and  hence  no  tenure  expressed  in  terms  of 
years — applies  to  those  in  the  civil  service  ;  but  the  superan- 
nuation laws  cease  to  make  additional  allowances  after  forty 
years '  of  service  ;  and  perhaps  the  great  question  for  us,  on 
this  subject,  is  not  that  of  fixing  any  tenure  of  office,  but  that 
of  deciding  upon  some  age  or  period  of  service  before  which  an 
officer  may  feel  safe  if  worthy,  and  after  which,  if  his  capacity 
is  impaired,  he  may  feci  it  is  wise  to  retire  lest  he  be  requested 
to  do  so. 

^  See  auto,  pp.  142-3. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE   MEEIT    SYSTEM   IN   THE   GREAT   DEPAETMENT8. 

Internal  revenue  administration. — Examinations. — Promotions. — ^Disci- 
pline.— Exclusion  of  politics. — Removals. — Extent  of  delinquency. — Cus- 
toms service. — Examinations. — Removals. — Neither  patronage  nor  poli- 
tics.— Stringent  regulations. — Extent  of  delinquency. — Method  of  appoint- 
ments and  promotions  compared  with  that  of  United  States. — The  Treas- 
ury. —  Open  competition  for  clerks. — Promotions. — Statement  of  Mr. 
Gladstone. — Post  Office  Department. — Classes  of  postmasters. — How 
clerks  are  examined  and  appointed. — Appointment  of  postmasters. — 
Open  competition  in  large  offices. — Severe  rules  of  discipline. — Xo  elec- 
tioneering in  offices  or  interference  with  elections. — Mr.  3Iundella's  state- 
ment.— State  Department  and  Consular  and  Diplomatic  Service. — How  far 
politics  excluded. — Examinations  for  clerks  and  consuls. — Regulations. — 
Members  of  Parliament  without  patronage. — Clerks  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament. — Not  removed  for  political  reasons. — Members  relieved  from 
solicitation. 

The  Inland  Revenue  Department  is  in  charge  of  a  board 
of  five  commissioners,  appointed  bj  the  Cro^\^l,  and  they  con- 
tinue in  oflSce  during  good  behavior.  More  than  two  thirds  of 
the  income  of  the  British  Government  comes  from  its  inland 
revenue.  The  amount  thus  collected  in  1876  was  $225,730,- 
180.  The  number  of  officials  in  the  service  was  7093,  be- 
sides employes.  Of  the  revenue  collected,  more  than  $75,- 
000,000  comes  from  spirits,  and  more  than  $38,000,000  from 
malt.  In  addition  to  what  is  covered  by  our  internal  revenue 
collections,  the  system  of  land  taxation,  of  income  taxes,  of 
house  duties,  and  of  game  and  dog  licenses,  are  administered 
by  this  board.  It  hardly  need  be  said  that  in  the  number  of 
agents,  in  the  magnitude  and  complexity  of  the  business  trans- 
acted, and  in  the  opportunities  of  cheating  which  a  lax  disci- 
pline would  afford,  British  internal  revenue  administration 
greatly  transcends  that  of  the  United  States.  The  taxation 
it  controls,  in  variety  and  difficulty,  approximates  what  would 


298  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

be  tlie  condition  witli  ns  if  State  taxation  were  added  to  tlie 
internal  revenue  administration  of  the  Federal  Government. 
By  reason  of  the  stability  of  its  tenure,  the  long  experience  it 
secures,  and  its  independence  of  elections  and  politics,  the 
board  is  able  to  pursue  a  firm  and  consistent  policy  and  to  en- 
force a  rigid  discipline. ' 

With  very  slight  exceptions,  all  entrance  to  the  service  is 
to  the  lowest  grade,  and  by  the  way  of  open  competition,  be- 
fore the  Civil  Service  Board.  Corruj^t  or  j^aiiiisan  influence 
and  official  favoritism  are  tlms  effectually  excluded.  The  ex- 
ceptions referred  to  are  in  the  lowest  grade  of  the  service, 
being  mere  messengers  in  some  of  the  local  offices,  as  to  which 
the  right  of  nomination  seems  to  have  survived.  But  even 
these  nominated  messengers  are  examined  under  the  board. 
And  from  messengers  and  porters  up  to  the  heads  of  bureaus, 
no  one  can  be  removed,  except  for  cause,  and  no  one  is  re- 
moved without  being  given  a  proper  hearing  or  opportunity 
for  explanation  in  his  own  defense.  Appointments  for  po- 
litical reasons  are,  I  hardly  need  add,  excluded  by  competition. 

The  board  has  the  right  of  promotion  and  authority  for  dis- 
cipline without  interference  from  any  other  quarter,  but  can- 
not increase  salaries  or  expenses.  Promotions  are  for  merit. 
In  certain  parts  of  the  service,  they  are  based  on  examinations, 
and  in  other  parts  on  official  records  kept  in  the  offices,  and, 
almost  without  exception,  all  the  higher  places  are  filled  from 
those  below.  Personal  records  of  the  conduct  of  all  officers  are 
kept  by  the  board.  The  right  of  discipline,  in  its  application, 
ranges  from  a  mere  caution  to  a  dismissal,  and  includes  the 
right  to  reduce  both  rank  and  j^ay.  It  would  seem  plain  that 
there  can  be  little  or  no  opportunity  for  politics  in  this  branch 
of  the  service.  ISTeither  the  dominant  party  nor  those  control- 
ling local  elections  are  allowed  chances  for  patronage  or  co- 
ercion anywhere  in  the  vast  network  of  official  places  through 
which,  in  all  parts  of  the  empire,  such  enormous  internal  rev- 
enues are  collected.     Year  after  year,  through  elections  f ollow- 

'  For  example,  each  clerk  has  to  sign,  eveiy  morning  and  evening,  his 
name  in  a  book  which  shows  the  hour  and  minute  of  his  arrival  and  depart- 
ure, and  this  record  must  be  daily  signed  by  a  supervising  officer.  Fines 
are  rigidly  imposed  for  tardiness. 


CITIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  299 

ing  elections,  during  one  administration  and  tlien  into  tlie 
next,  without  change  of  method  or  members,  the  work  of  the 
department  advances  steadily  upon  business  principles  ;  not  a 
clerk  with  a  fear  of  losing,  not  a  politician  with  a  chance  of 
gaining,  an  office  by  any  result  in  the  field  of  politics.  The 
best  information  I  could  get  as  to  the  character'  of  the  admin- 
istration is  to  this  effect :  It  is  universally  believed  to  be 
efficient  and  without  con-uption  or  political  bias.  1  could  hear 
of  no  reports  that  reveniies  were  not  properly  collected  or 
accounted  for.  There  is  no  public  rumor  or  belief  (so  far  as  I 
have  been  able  to  leam)  that  in  any  way  corresponds  to  the 
current  views  in  this  country  in  regard  to  whiskey  frauds  and 
official  dehnquency  in  connection  with  internal  revenue  admin- 
istration. Such  seems  to  be  the  conclusion  of  an  American 
gentleman,  than  whom,  probably,  no  one  is  better  informed 
on  the  subject;  "Great  Britain,"  he  says,  "has  for  many 
years  had  an  iniemal,  income  tax  which,  .  .  .  with  her  trained 
officials,  is  assessed  and  collected  with  as  much  of  accuracy  as 
any  such  tax  probably  can  be. "  *  I  have  high  authority '  for 
stating  that  "  peculation  amounts  to  nothing.  .  .  .  I  do  not 
think  there  is  an  average  of  three  cases  a  year.  .  .  .  The 
revenue  seldom  loses  anything  from  such  cases. ' '  Referring 
to  collecting  officers,  it  is  said,  "  I  think  there  liave  not  heen 
more  than  half  a  dozen  defaults  in  twenty  four  years  .  .  .  in 
no  case  has  the  revenue  lost  anything.  The  estimated  losses 
by  ;fraud  and  default  for  the  year  18TT-8  amount  to  £400 
out  of  a  collection  of  £46,000,000  .  .  .  amongst  the  collectors 
of  land  tax  and  inhabited  house  duty  .  .  .  five  defaults  have 
occurred  since  1874."  It  would  require  far  more  space  than 
I  can  spare  to  set  forth  the  carefully  matured  methods  of 
supervision  and  precaution  by  which  such  fidelity  has  been 
secured.  Next  after  the  exclusion  of  politics  and  favoritism, 
in  the  selections  of  those  who  enter  the  service,  the  stability, 
vigor,  and  sense  of  responsibility,  which  a  permanent  Board 
is  able  to  impart,  are  the  most  important  elements. 

'  In  the  appendix  will  be  found  several  letters  bearing  upon  this  point. 
"  David  A.  "Wells,  in  International  Reckw,  April,  1878. 
'  Letter  from  one  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Commissioners  to  the  author 
Kov.  17,  1877. 


300  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

The  Customs  Service.  The  foreign  (or  customs)  duties 
of  Great  Britain  in  1876  amounted  to  $96,446,000,  and 
hence  fall  below  our  own  in  a  ratio  approximating  that  in 
which  her  inland  duties  exceed  ours.  The  whole  number  of 
established  clerks  in  the  customs  service  in  1876  was  4626, 
but  these  do  not  include  messengers,  porters,  or  mere  em- 
ployes. This  branch  of  her  fiscal  affairs  is  administered  by 
a  board  of  four  commissioners,  the  members  of  which  are 
appointed  by  the  Crown,  and  they  continue  in  office  during 
good  behavior.  There  has  been  such  a  board  for  over  a  hun- 
dred years.  To  them  and  their  subordinates,  what  I  have  just 
said  (in  connection  with  internal  revenue  administration)  as  to 
the  exclusion  of  politics  and  favoritism,  and  as  to  authority 
and  discipline,  also  applies.  As  illustrating  the  discipline 
and  system  that  prevails,  I  may  mention  that  the  board  makes 
an  annual  report,  wliich  not  only  sets  forth  every  fact  neces- 
sary to  disclose  the  character  of  the  administration,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  but  states,  in  apt  medical  phrase,  the  several 
diseases  which  have  caused  sickness,  and  for  how  long  a  time, 
and  to  how  many  persons,  among  those  in  the  customs  service, 
at  the  larger  ports. ' 

The  hours  of  duty  of  the  indoor  branch  of  the  service  are 
from  ten  to  four,  and  of  the  outdoor  branch  from  nine  to 
four.  Every  ordinary  clerk  has,  each  day,  to  sign  a  record 
when  he  reaches  and  again  when  he  leaves  his  office,  which 
fixes  his  daily  service  even  to  the  minute.  The  head  of  .the 
office  must  put  his  initials  daily  at  the  foot  of  the  page.  Fines 
are  regularly  imposed  for  tardiness  or  absence,  and  no  salary 
can  be  paid  when  any  fine  is  in  arrears.  These  signed  "  ap- 
pearance sheets"  are  laid  before  the  board  weekly,  and  if  fines 
often  occur,  other  consequences  beside  their  payment  follow. 
There  is  a  system  of  supervision  of  official  conduct  by  officers 
having  that  duty  (and  the  same  in  other  departments),  which 
is  analogous  to  the  duty  imposed  on  roundsmen  in  a  police 
force,  and  the  instructions  declare  that  ' '  the  board  rely  on 
their  zeal  and  discretion  in  taking  every  necessary  means  for 
ascertaining,  not  merely  the  official  conduct    and  character, 

'  The  names  are  not  given. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  301 

but  tlio  habits  and  pursuits  of  every  individual  under  their 
controh ' '  Full  records  are  kept  in  every  office  of  the  official 
conduct  of  those  who  serve  there  ;  and  it  is  on  such  evidence, 
on  the  official  opinions  of  the  leading  officers  formally  taken,  and 
and  on  appropriate  examinations,  and  not  on  politics  or  influ- 
ence, that  promotions  are  based.  It  would  seem  plain  there 
can  be  but  small  opportunity  for  neglecting  public  business 
in  order  to  attend  to  politics,  and  I  have  tliought  such  details 
not  unimportant,  in  view  of  the  notorious  laxity  which  has 
prevailed  in  so  many  of  our  custom  houses. 

Tliere  are  one  hundred  and  forty  ports  of  entry  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  they  are  all  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  same 
board.  Like  the  Inland  Revenue  Board,  it  has  a  full  au- 
thority of  appointment,  promotion,  and  removal  as  well  as  of 
discipline.  I  hardly  need  to  point  out  that  a  permanent  Board, 
having  charge  of  all  the  custom  houses,  has  great  facilities  for 
securing  uniformity  of  administration  and  for  bringing  the 
expenses  of  each  into  comparison  with  the  others,  in  a  way 
which  largely  contributes  to  responsibility  and  economy  ;  but 
I  have  no  space  for  details.  If  I  should  merely  say  that  this 
authority  is  really  independent  of  both  general  and  local  poli- 
tics— that  a  custom  house  is  no  more  a  party  or  a  political 
agency  in  Great  Britain  than  a  college  is  with  us,  and  that  a 
collector  is  no  more  a  political  manager  than  is  one  of  our  col- 
lege presidents — I  fear  I  should  hardly  be  believed  in  thus 
declaring  the  simple  truth.  I  must,  therefore,  give  some  fur- 
ther facts.  The  clerks,  at  all  these  ports,  and  in  all  the  offices, 
are  appointed  according  to  well-known  rules,  from  among 
those  who  were  first  in  the  competitive  examinations  before  the 
Civil  Service  Commission.  Xo  influence  can  secure  a  clerk- 
shi]),*  and  no  officer  or  pohtician  can  decide  who  shall  com- 
pete for  one.  The  clerks  are,  therefore,  neither  politicians 
by  trade  nor  insolvents  for  want  of  ability  to  trade,  but 
young  men  whose  character  and  capacity  have  stood  a  severe 

1  There  are  a  few  messengers,  boatmen,  and  porters  below  the  grade  of 
clerks,  who,  through  a  curious  survivorship  of  a  fragment  of  the  old  system,  I 
are  yet  nominated  by  the  Treasuiy  for  only  a  pass  examination.     But  that  j 
examination  is  exacting,  and  when  once  in  service,  they  are  only  removed  | 
for  cause  after  an  opportunity  of  explanation.  ' 

20 


302  CIVIL   SERVICE  IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

public  test,  and  whose  places  have  been  gained  by  their 
own  merits.  They  must  serve  at  least  six  months  on_ 
probation,  and  then  if  approved  they  are  appointed  ;  and 
they  can  only  be  removed  for  cause,  and  after  a  hear-_ 
ing  before  the  board.  They  may  be  fined  or  reduced  in  rank 
for  bad  conduct.  Such  public  servants  as  housekeepers,  door- 
keepers, watchmen,  etc.,  have  in  addition  to  place  on  file 
evidence  both  of  character  and  of  ' '  the  course  of  life  they 
have  led."  The  rules  are  of  many  years'  standing  which  re- 
quire such  officers  as  searchers,  landing  waiters,  and  gangers 
"to  go  under  a  course  of  instruction  three  months  without 
pay. ' '  The  higher  places,  including  collectorships,  are  filled 
by  promotions,  which  are  based  on  merit  ;  and  full  and  care- 
ful records  are  kept  in  order  that  a  just  judgment  may  be 
formed.  The  board  annually  inspects  the  administration 
at  each  port,  and  a  careful  record  of  the  cost  and  char- 
acter of  the  administration  of  each  is  made.  In  the 
outdoor  service,  where  the  board  has  less  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  officers,  ^ one  half  of  the  promotions  are 
secured  by  competition  among  the  clerks.  The  office  of  col- 
lector at  Liverpool,  London,  or  other  large  ports  is  only 
filled  by  a  person  who  has  been  collector  at  some  port  where 
he  has  supervised  every  brancli  of  port  service.  Our  practice 
of  placing  inexperienced  men  at  the  head  of  even  a  small  port 
is  as  utterly  unknown  as  is  the  practice  of  considering  party 
pohtics  in  making  such  appointments.  Nothing  can  be  in 
wider  contrast  than  our  toleration  of  miscellaneous  influence 
for  effecting  appointments  and  promotions  and  the  British  sys- 
tem which  excludes  them. 

"  It  has  long  been  the  practice  in  the  Customs  to  require  the  chief 
officers  of  each  branch  to  make  a  report  in  writing  to  the  Board  of 
Commissioners  as  to  the  character  and  qualifications  of  the  officers 
coming  forward  for  promotion,  and  to  name  the  persons  whom  they 
consider  most  competent  and  deserving.  It  is  usual  in  the  more 
important  cases  to  summon  the  surveyors  general  and  inspectors 
general  to  the  board  room,  and  take  their  opinions  separately  on  the 
subject.  And,  as  a  further  security  against  improper  selections,  the 
board  is  required  to  transmit  a  formal  report  to  the  Lords  of  the 
Treasury,  stating  all  the  circumstances,  and  requesting  their  Lordships' 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT   BRITAIN.  303 

confirmation  of  the  appointment.  .  .  The  circumstances  of  all  pro- 
motions stand  recorded  in  the  official  books,  and  may  be  referred 
to  in  the  event  of  any  complaint  or  inquiry  being  made  into  the 
matter."^ 

« 

Regulations  long  in  force  contain  these  provisions  : 

"  In  any  case  in  which  an  officer  would  be  entitled  to  promotion 
on  his  own  merits,  application  made  in  his  favor  .  .  .  affords 
grounds  for  suspicion  that  the  selection  of  the  officer  has  been  influ- 
enced in  some  degree  by  private  considerations  .  .  .  and  private 
applications  from  officers  themselves,  or  from  othei-s,  on  their  behalf, 
addressed  to  individual  members  of  the  board,  are  interdicted  ;  and 
the  same  will  not  only  have  the  effect  of  retarding  the  promotion  of 
the  parties,  but  subject  them  to  the  board's  severe  displeasure.  The 
board  .  .  .  will  consider  any  private  application  for  promotion 
to  have  emanated  from  the  party  in  whose  behalf  the  same  shall  be 
made  .  .  .  unless  he  shall  satisfy  tlie  board  that  he  had  no 
knowledge  thereof,  directly  or  indirectly.  Beyond  recording  your 
vote,  if  you  shall  be  so  entitled,  you  are  not  in  any  way  to  interfere 
in  the  elections  for  members  of  Parliament." 

These  facts  must  be  sufficient  to  show  how  radically  different 
are  the  systems  prevailing  in  the  customs  service  of  the  two 
countries.  Promotions  constantly  tendered  on  such  conditions 
would  seem  to  be  a  powerful  stimulant  to  good  conduct,  and 
such,  I  am  convinced,  is  the  fact.  The^'  also  cause  those  in 
the  service  to  give  earnest  attention  to  the  relative  merits  of 
each  other  and  to  the  manner  in  which  the  members  of  the 
board  apply  the  principle  of  advancement  to  which  they  are 
thus  publicly  pledged.  A  few  facts  bearing  upon  the  disci- 
pline, honesty,  and  efficiency  of  this  branch  of  the  service  will 
be  found  interesting.  There  has  been  an  average  number  of 
fifteen  a  year,  during  the  past  fi  ve  years,  dismissed  from  the 
service  for  bad  conduct.'     During  those  five  years  there  has 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  337,  printed  in  1855. 

'Tha  Board  being  independent  of  party  politics,  the  rales  as  to  dismissals 
are  rigid,  and  are,  I  think,  fearlessly  applied.  As  an  illustration  of  tlie  precau- 
tions against  abuses — and  perhaps  of  their  infrequency  as  well,  I  may  men- 
tion that  the  standing  instructions  require  that  even  an  "  anonymous  com- 
plaint" shall  be  publicly  investigated  on  public  notice,  the  complainant 
being  called  on  in  such  notice  to  appear  ;  but  if  he  does  not  appear,  "  a  sec- 
ond notice  is  to  be  published,"  and  the  charge  investigated,  pursuant  thereto. 


804  CIVIL  SERVICE   KSr  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

been  only  a  single  case  of  defalcation  in  the  customs  service 
proper,  and  that  was  for  only  £3  5*.  But,  even  in  this  case, 
a  jury  failed  to  find  the  officer  guilty,  though  the  board  dis- 
missed him.  ' '  There  have  been  eleven  cases  in  five  years  of 
pilfering  small  quantities  of  goods.  The  government,  how- 
ever, finally  lost  nothing.  During  those  years,  there  were 
also  two  cases  of  defalcation  in  collection  of  money  belonging 
to  the  corporation  of  Trinity  House,  but  which  is  collected 
by  the  Customs  Department,"  the  amount  being  £4225  Qs. 
5d. ,  a  part  of  which  was  lost. ' 

It  is  not  for  me  to  attempt  to  describe  the  difi^erent  effects  upon 
public  business,  public  morality,  and  political  affairs — a  differ- 
ence almost  indescribable,  and  not  easy  to  imagine  even — be- 
tween such  a  customs  system,  based  on  personal  character  and 
capacity,  and  independent  of  partisan  politics  and  corrupt  influ- 
ence, and  a  system  under  which  coercions  and  favor  make  and 
unmake  officers,  and  every  custom  house  on  the  borders  is  the 
centre  of  a  feverish,  costly  and  useless  partisan  activity,  if  of 
nothing  more  pernicious.  What  can  be  more  widely  con- 
trasted or  more  significant  than  the  different  methods  pur- 
sued, in  the  two  countries,  for  the  common  object  of  selecting 
that  mere  business  officer  called  a  collector  of  a  port  ?  In  the 
one,  he  is  quietly  taken  by  the  administrative  board,  through 
a  well-known  process,  based  on  merit,  and  without  political 
significance,  from  some  lower  place  of  duty  %vhere  his  public 
record  of  efficiency  and  economy  has  brought  his  capacity  to 
the  notice  of  his  superiors.  Once  in  office,  he  remains,  like  a 
judge,  during  good  behavior.  In  the  other,  the  selection 
raises  an  exciting  contest  of  partisan  strategy  and  influence, 
certainly  in  the  district,  and  very  likely  in  the  State,  if  not  in 
Congress  and  the  whole  nation  ;  with  intrigues  and  embroil- 
ments which  bring  all  the  vicious  machinery  of  political  man- 
agement into  action,  convert  every  custom  house  clerk  into  a 
factiouist  compelled  to  fight  for  his  salary  and  his  place, 
absorb  the  activity  of  every  grade  of  officials  from  doorkeepers 
and  porters  to  Senators  and  Cabinet  Secretaries,  disgust  the 
merchants  and  all   the  best  citizens  with  the  very  name  of 

'  Letter  Secretary  Customs  Board  to  the  author,  Dec.  11,  1877. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  305 

politics  and  office  ;  and  all  with  the  result,  perhaps,  of  a  col- 
lector utterly  unacquainted  with  his  duties,  but  bound  fast  in 
demoralizing  pledges  to  remove  a  third  of  his  best  subordi- 
nates in  order  to  meet  the  promises  which  are  likely  to  compel 
liim  to  be  an  active  partisan  leader,  but  a  poor  collector  of  a 
port,  during  the  four  years  or  less  which  may  intervene  before 
another  battle  of  the  same  kind  must  be  fought.  By  one 
method,  the  selection  is  so  made  that  it  stimulates  and  honors 
capacity  and  integi'ity  in  every  grade  of  the  service  ;  by  the 
other,  such  qualifications  are  spurned,  and  the  nation  is  made 
to  declare  its  preference  for  political  intrigue  and  manage- 
ment— to  practically  say  to  every  clerk,  IS^o  matter  how  devoted 
and  capable  you  may  be,  you  have  no  chance  of  becoming  a 
collector — no  chance  of  escaping  dependence  u]3on  a  politician 
put  over  you — unless  you  become  a  pohtician  yourself. 

In  general  terms,  I  ought  to  say  that  public  confidence  in 
the  customs  service  in  Great  Britain — in  its  honesty,  its  free- 
dom from  political  partiality,  its  economy  and  efficiency — 
appears  to  be  very  nearly  if  not  quite  universal.  * 

The  Treasury.  The  two  great  revenue  divisions  already 
described  include  the  bulk  of  the  administration  in  the  Brit- 
ish Treasury  Department.  And  this  fact  illustrates  a  very  im- 
portant difference  between  the  revenue  system  of  Great  Brit- 
ain and  that  of  the  United  States.  There,  as  with  us,  the 
Treasury  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  political  office  ;  and  those 
at  its  head  are  expected  to  carry  out  the  financial  policy  of  the 
dominant  party.  This  duty  requires  a  right  of  giving  general 
instructions  to  those  legally  at  the  head  of  the  revenue  depart- 
ments, to  the  extent  that  such  policy  is  involved  ;  but  it  is  not 
concerned  with  the  discipline  or  the  political  opinions  of  sub- 
ordinates, or  with  the  miscellaneous  details  of  the  public  work, 
which  needs  to  be  the  same  whatever  party  is  in  power.  And 
on  this  theory,  the  two  great  Revenue  Boards  I  have  described, 
the  heads  of  which  remain  unaffected  by  political  changes  in 
the  cabinet  or  in  Parliament,  have  charge  of  all  the  offices, 
officials,  and  the  work  connected  with  revenue  collection,  sub- 
ject only  to  such  instructions  and  to  certain  rights  of  appeal 

'  Here  again  I  refer  to  the  letters  in  the  appendix. 


306  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

in  connection  witli  the  higher  grades  of  promotions  and  a  few 
other  issnes  of  paramount  importance.  The  Treasury  does 
not  interfere  with  revenue  officers  or  affairs  directly,  but  only 
by  general  instructions  communicated  through  the  proper  rev- 
enue boards.  It  is  apparent  that  such  an  arrangement  must 
largely  contribute  to  make  revenue  administration  independent 
of  both  local  and  general  politics.  The  British  system  as- 
sumes that  it  does  not  follow,  because  the  head  of  the  Treasury 
is  a  statesman,  competent  to  guide  a  national  policy,  that  he 
is  at  once  endued  with  the  local  and  personal  information 
needed  to  pass  upon  innumerable  aj)peals  for  office  and  multi- 
farious claims  for  promotion  ;  or  that  he  has  suddenly  mas- 
tered the  manifold  questions  of  skill,  science,  routine,  and 
method  which  it  is  the  labor  of  an  ordinary  official  life  to 
understand  ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  does  that  system  suggest 
that  it  is  wise  to  have  the  head  of  the  Treasury  daily  besieged 
by  office-seekers  and  schemers  pushing  for  advantage  under  a 
vast  body  of  complicated  laws  and  regulations,  with  which  he 
is  perhaps  little  familiar,  and  which  questions  of  national  in- 
terest give  him  no  time  to  study. 

I  have  before  stated  that  the  head  of  the  Treasury  itself 
is  a  board,  which  now  has  seven  members,  of  which  the 
First  Lord  (or  member)  is  Prime  Ministei*,  and  the  Chancel- 
lor of  the  Exchequer  is  also  a  member,  and  he  is  generally 
the  leader  of  the  ruling  party  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
These  seven  members  are  political  officers,  and  go  out  with 
each  administration.  But  there  is  also  a  permanent  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  who  has  charge  of  the  administrative 
work,  and  is  unaffected  by  political  changes.  The  clerks  in 
the  Treasury  gain  their  places  by  open,  competitive  examina- 
tions before  the  Civil  Service  Commission.  They  enter  at  the 
lowest  grade  ;  and  the  higher  places  (except  membership  of 
the  board)  are  tilled  by  promotion  from  below.  Neither 
partisan  politics  nor  official  favoritism  can  secure  appointments 
in  the  Treasury  Department  of  Great  Britain.  And,  therefore, 
when  Mr.  Gladstone  said '  that,  "as  to  the  clerkships  in  my 
office — the  office  of  the  Treasury — every  one  of  you  has  just  as 

'  In  his  speech  to  the  electors  of  Greenwich  in  1871. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  307 

mucli  i^ower  over  their  disposal  as  I  have.  ...  In  order  that 
the  public  service  might  be,  indeed,  the  public  service  ;  in 
order  that  we  might  not  have  among  the  civil  officers  of  the 
State  that  which  we  had  complained  of  in  the  army,  namely, 
that  the  service  was  not  the  property  of  the  nation,  but  of 
the  officers,  we  have  now  been  enabled  to  remove  the  barriers 
of  nomination,  patronage,  jobbery,  favoritism,  in  whatever 
form  ;  and  every  man  belonging  to  the  people  of  England,  if 
he  so  please  to  iit  his  children  for  competing  for  places  in  the] 
public  service,  may  do  it  entirely  irrespective  of  the  question, 
wliat  is  his  condition  in  life.  .  .  ."  when  Mr.  Gladstone 
proclaimed  this  noble  triumph  of  common  justice  and  common 
honesty  over  all  that  had  been  aristocratic,  venal,  and  partisan 
in  British  administration,  I  am  convinced  he  not  only  said 
what  was  literally  true  of  himself,  but  what,  in  principle,  was 
trae  of  every  member  of  the  Cabinet  and  of  Parliament. 

The  Postal  Service.  It  is  not  necessary,  after  what  I  have 
said  of  the  revenue  service,  to  enter  much  into  detail  as  to  the 
application  of  the  merit  system  to  the  postal  service.  Its  rep- 
utation is  familiar  to  all  well-infonned  Americans.  Though 
legally  under  the  control  of  the  Postmaster-General,  (who  is 
a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and  hence  a  political  officer,)  the 
postal  service  is  practically  managed  by  a  permanent,  non- 
political  secretary.  All  subordinate  officers  serve  during 
good  behavior,  and  they  can  be  removed  only  for  cause.  The 
reason  for  any  removal  of  a  clerk  must  be  stated  in  the  rec- 
ords. With  reference  to  the  appointment  of  postmasters  and 
the  clerical  force,  tlie  department  may  be  considered  as  in  four 
divisions  : 

1.  There  are  the  very  small  offices  in  which  an  aggregate 
sum  is  paid  for  caiTying  on  each  office,  and  not  much  scrutiny 
is  extended  to  the  clerical  force,  if  indeed  there  is  any,  pro- 
vided the  business  is  well  cared  for. 

2.  In  offices  larger  than  the  last  named,  but  with  an  income 
not  above  £120  in  England  and  £100  in  Ireland  and  Scotland, 
the  clerks  are  nominated  by  the  postmasters  and  are  examined 
upon  a  imifonn  method  by  the  Civil  Serdce  Commission.' 

'  I  find  myself  unable  to  state  that  such  examinations  extend  to  all  offices 
of  this  grade,  but  I  believe  such  to  be  the  fact. 


308  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

The  clerks  being  few  in  so  small  offices,  each  may  be  well 
known  to  tlie  postmaster,  and  the  form  of  competition  is 
hardly  necessary,  and  has  not  been  applied.  The  postmas- 
ters, in  this  class  of  offices,  are  selected  by  the  Treasury,  but 
are  only  to  be  removed  for  cause. 

3,  In  offices  where  the  income  is  larger  than  the  amount 
last  named,  the  postmasters  are  selected  from  the  entire  ser- 
vice as  a  recognition  of  their  efficiency.  They  are  'appointed 
by  the  Postmaster-General,  and  are  removable  only  for  cause. 
How  effectually  these  appointments  are  severed  from  legisla- 
tive dictation,  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  official  notices 
of  the  vacancy  declare  that  applications  through  "members  of 
Parliament  are  calculated  to  defeat  rather  than  promote  the 
object  in  view,"  and  no  candidate  is  allowed  to  apply  save 
through  his  superior  officer.'  The  clerks  are  examined  as  last 
mentioned. 

4.  In  the  great  offices  of  London,  Edinburgh,  and  Dublin, 
the  clerks  all  secure  their  places  by  open,  competitive  exami- 
nations before  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 

Removals  are  nowhere  made  for  political  reasons,  but  only 
for  causes  connected  with  their  efficiency  or  character.  The 
Postmaster  of  Liverpool  has  held  his  place  since  1841,  and  the 
Q  Postmaster  of  London  his  place  since  1834.  Careful  exami- 
nations are  held  for  sorters,  earners,  distributors,  and  telegraph 
operators,  etc. ,  in  the  postal  service. 

It  would  require  too  much  detail  to  make  any  adequate 
comparison  between  British  and  American  postal  administra- 
tion. But  by  way  of  illustration,  I  may  mention  that  in  the 
city  of  Kew  York  the  long  experience  and  rare  executive  abil- 
ity of  the  postmaster,^  aided  by  a  clerical  force  improved  (so 
far  as  our  system  would  permit)  by  examinations  and  competi- 
tions like  those  thus  practised  in  Great  Britain,  have  brought 
the  postal  service  to  a  degree  of  efficiency  I  think  never 
before  reached  in  this  country  ;  yet,  as  comjDared  with  that  of 
London,  it  stands  as  follows  :  London,  12  daily  deliveries  in  a 
portion  of  the  city,  11  in  other  portions,  and  6  in  the  sub- 
urban districts  ;  New  York,  7  daily  deliveries  in  a  portion  of 
the  city,  5  in  other  portions,  and  3  in  the  rest  of  the  city  ;  and 

1  3  Report  Com.  Iiiq.  1873,  App.  F,  p.  78.  "  Thomas  L.  James,  Esq. 


^^  .. 

CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN.  \309 

the  superior  efficiency  of  the  British  service  is,  I  thinS^v 
hardly  more  marked  in  London  than  in  the  other  cities  and  in 
the  villages  and  rural  districts.* 

It  is  well  known  that  the  money  order  system  prevailed  in 
the  postal  service  of  Great  Britain  for  a  considerable  time  be- 
fore we  applied  it.  The  telegraph  system  and  the  issuing  of 
revenue  licenses  are  now  a  part  of  her  postal  service,  and  there 
are  also  attached  to  it  between  5000  and  6000  post-office  savings 
banks,  which  cause  a  complexity  and  responsibility  in  the  postal 
administration  unknown  in  the  United  States.  Over  25,000 
separate  deposits  of  money  have  been  made  in  the  postal  banks 
in  a  single  day,  and  open  accounts  are  kept  with  more  than 
1,700,000  depositoi*s.  Postal  savings  banks  (which  have 
been  adopted  in  France  and  Belgium,  on  a  large  scale)  are 
regarded  as  a  great  aid  to  economy  and  saving  on  the  part  of 
the  poor  ;  but  the  duties  they  impose,  and  the  sending  of 
more  than  24,000,000  of  telegraph  messages  and  the  issuing 
of  nearly  a  million  of  revenue  licenses  each  year,  I  hardly 
need  say,  call  for  rare  capacity  and  discipline  in  the  officers  of 
the  postal  service,  and  for  an  amount  of  experience  and  trained 
skill  to  which  our  partisan  system  of  ap]3ointment8  and  remov- 
als is  fatal.  I  may  say,  generally,  that  the  discipline  is  as 
strict  in  the  Post-  Office  Department  in  every  particular  as  in 
the  others  to  which  I  have  referred.  For  example,  "  An  offi- 
cer who  borrows  money  of  his  subordinate  or  lends  money  to 
his  superior  is  liable  to  dismissal  ;"  and  it  is  also  a  cause  for 
dismissal  '*  for  any  letter-carrier  or  rural  messenger  to  borrow 
money  from  any  person  residing  on  his  walks. ' '  In  many  of 
the  larger  offices,  the  clerks  are  organized  and  trained  as  fire 
brigades  ;  and  general  efficiency  and  discipline  have  been  in- 
creased by  the  supervision  of  medical  officers  in  the  postal 
service,  who  report  on  the  cause  and  kind  of  sickness,  and  take 
care  that  absences  for  alleged  ill  health  are  not  too  easily  ob- 
tained.    But  it  is  more  important  to  mention  that  every  post- 

'  Mr.  James'  competitive  tests  have,  perhaps,  raised  the  ability  of  his 
force  nearly  or  quite  to  that  of  the  same  number  in  London,  but  the  higher 
public  stand  ird  of  administration  in  that  city  would  not  be  satisfied  with 
what  it  is  possible  to  do  with  a  force  of  sorters  and  carriers  so  inadequate  as 
that  allowed  in  New  York.  3Ir.  James  is  about  extending  open  competition 
to  the  selection  of  all  the  clerks  in  his  office. 


310  CIVIL   SERVICE    IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

f   master  and  deputy,  and  "  every  person  employed  by  or  under 
/|  '    liim  or  tliem,"  are.  prohibited  '  from  exerting  tJieir  influence 
either  for  or  against  any  particular  candidates"  (except  they 
may  vote  themselves),  and  from  by  "  word,  message,  or  writ- 
ing, or  in  any  manner  whatever,  endeavoring  to  persuade  any 

i     elector  to  give  or  dissuade  any  elector  from  giving  his  vote. 
...     Canvassing  within  a  post  office  is  not  permitted," 

'    and  postmasters  are  instructed,  when  permission  to  canvas  is 
requested,  "  to  refuse  it  absolutely."  ° 

It  is,  I  presume,  quite  .impossible  to  imagine  the  astonish- 
ment with  which  an  officer  in  charge  of  a  British  post-office 
would  receive  a  proposition  from  a  23artisan  assessment  collec- 
tor to  go  among  his  clerks  and  make  a  levy  of  political  black- 
mail. There  are  no  politics  in  a  Britisli  post  office,  no  parti- 
san contentions  over  its  officials,  no  political  management 
within  its  walls,  no  reliance  by  any  party  on  the  vote  of  its 
clerks,  or  on  exactions  from  their  salaries.  In  the  light  of  such 
facts,  we  can  see  the  significance  of  the  words  of  Mr.  Mun- 
della,^  when  he  said  :  "I  stand  before  you  the  representative 
of  the  largest  constituency  in  England,  and  yet  lia^e  not  the 
power  to  control  the  appointment  of  the  lowest  excise  offi- 
cer ;"  for  what  he  states  is  not  only  true  as  to  excise  offices, 
but  as  to  all  other  offices  in  whatever  department  ;  and  the 
broad  fact  he  meant  to  illustrate  was  not  that  teclmically  he 
could  not  appoint,  but  that,  as  a  memljer  of  Parliament,  he 
had  no  opportunity  to  control,  and  that  the  public  opinion  and 
administrative  methods  of  his  country  would  not  permit  him 
to  control  any  official  appointment  in  her  service. 

Department  of  State  and  Consular  and  DiplomatiG  Service. 
There  is  no  other  part  of  the  public  service  so  difficult  to 
bring  under  rigid  rules,  none  in  which  so  peculiar  infonnation 
is  required,  none  wherein  partisan  and  personal  favoritism  is 
more  disgraceful  and  disastrous.  It  would,  however,  require 
too  much  space  to  enter  fully  into  the  particulars  ;  but  I  can, 
in  a  general  way,  state  the  methods  through  which  the  Gov- 

'  This  part  of  the  regulation  is  based  on  the  statute  9  Anne,  chap.  10,  §44, 
already  referred,  to. 
"  Instructions  to  Head  Postmasters,  1873,  pp.  34,  31,  and  33. 
'  Speech  in  New  York  city. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  311 

emment  of  Great  Britain  lias  pretty  effectually  taken  these 
branches  of  administration  out  of  patronage  and  politics.  The 
mere  exigencies  of  her  supremacy  and  safety  in  so  many 
quarters  of  the  globe  where  she  rales,  together  with  the 
demonstrated  conditions  of  success  in  that  vast  foreign  com- 
merce which  is  vital  to  her  prosperity  as  a  nation,  have  long 
since  impressed  upon  her  statesmen,  merchants,  and  manufac- 
turers a  deep  sense  of  the  paramount  importance  of  honesty 
and  capacity  in  her  consular  and  diplomatic  service.*  This  con- 
viction alone  has  become  a  powerful  influence  (far  stronger,  I 
must  think,  than  any  existing  in  this  country)  in  restraint  of 
solicitation  and  political  pressure  brought  to  bear  on  the  for- 
eign service.  The  conviction  is  not  less  general  and  decided 
that  essential  efficiency  in  either  branch  cannot  be  attained 
without  much  experience  in  the  service.  With  such  support 
from  public  opinion,  official  duty  is  not  so  difficult,  and  de- 
mands for  removals  are  more  easily  resisted. 

"While  there  is  a  right  of  exception,  not  often  applied  in 
practice,  it  is  the  rule  and  coui*se  of  administration  that  the , 
higher  places  are  filled  from  the  lower  (jjerhaps  with  consider- 
able reference  to  seniority  of  service,  but)  mainly  with  a  view 
of  rewarding  and  securing  merit.  This  is  beyond  question  a 
great  stimulus  to  fidelity  and  learning  in  the  line  of  duty. 
Competition  has  been  resorted  to  in  making  selections  for  pro- 
motions. The  clerical  places  in  the  Foreign  Office  (corre- 
sponding to  that  of  our  Secretary  of  State)  are  filled  from  the 
best  qualified  on  a  hst  of  persons  sent  by  the  Secretary  to  com- 
pete together  in  an  examination  before  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioners. It  is  quite  easy  for  the  Secretary  to  have  personal 
information  concerning  each  of  the  small  body  of  clerks  in  his 
office,  and  the  fact  that  state  secrets  are  so  open  to  them  is 

*  We  may  note  its  stren^h,  in  the  fact  that  the  present,  Conservative  ad- 
ministration has  just  appointed  Lord  Dufferin  (a  Liberal,  and  lately  Governor- 
General  of  Canada)  to  be  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg. 

*  Perhaps  there  is  sometimes  too  much  regard  for  seniority,  -which  may 
have  been  allowed  to  exclude  larger  ability  from  the  more  important  posts  ; 
but  the  Secretary  is  always  at  liberty  to  take  the  best.  This  is  a  deep  and 
many-sided  question,  I  will  not  assume  to  express  any  opinion  about,  and 
is  not  to  be  decided  by  instances,  but  by  the  general  effect  upon  the  whole 
service. 


313  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

hardly  consistent  witli  allowing  any  person  not  known  to  liira 
to  come  into  that  branch  of  the  service  by  com23etition  or 
otherwise  than  on  his  personal  information.  Persons  seeking 
clerical  places  under  the  foreign  legations,  or  elsewhere  in  the 
diplomatic  service,  are  examined  in  the  same  way,  and  their 
examinations  appear  to  be  thorough  and  exacting.' 

The  rules  require  attaches  to  serve  in  the  Foreign  Office  six 
months  before  going  on  foreign  duty,  and  they  are  under  pro- 
bation for  two  years.  Applicants  for  consular  appointments 
must  also  be  examined  before  the  Civil  Service  Commission  ; 
but  the  nature  of  the  service  hardly  allows  competition.^ 

The  spirit  of  the  rules  for  the  examination  of  those  who 
apply  for  consulates  may  be  inferred  from  the  following : 
They  must  be  able  to  speak  French  as  well  as  English  ;  "  and 
they  must  have  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  current  lan- 
guage, so  far  as  commerce  is  concerned,  of  the  port  at  which 
they  are  appointed  to  reside,  to  enable  them  to  communi- 
cate directly  with  the  authorities  ;"  or,  in  other  words, 
,they  are  not  allowed  to  depart  in  a  condition  of  ignorance  that 
leaves  them  utterly  unable  even  to  communicate  understand- 
ingly  in  regard  to  duties  which  are  sent  to  perform.  They 
must  "  also  have  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  British  mercan- 
tile and  commercial  law  to  enable  them  to  deal  with  questions 
arising  between  British  shipowners,  shipmasters,  and  seamen. ' ' 
It  does  not  seem  to  be  thought  wise  to  send  persons  destitute 
of  all  knowledge  of  the  legal  principles,  or  of  the  intricate 
commercial  codes  they  are  to  administer,  to  be  the  protectors 
of  the  commerce  and  subjects  of  a  great  nation  in  a  foreign 
country.  And,  in  addition,  where  it  is  not  impracticable, 
those  going  for  the  first  time  to  a  foreign  consulate  are  re- 
quired to  attend  three  months  at  the  Foreign  Office,  in  order 
that  they  may  become  more  competent  for  their  duties. 

It  does  not  fall  within  my  plan  to  consider  the  great  differ- 
ence  in  the  consular  systems  of  the  two  countries  in  regard  to 

'  The  examinations  would  seem  to  show  that  the  knowledge  required  of 
the  history  of  the  United  States  even  is  greater  than  has,  sometimes  at  least, 
been  found  to  suffice  for  getting  into  our  own  service. 

'  In  cases  where  the  appointees  are  abroad  or  the  exigency  of  the  service 
requires  it,  examinations  may  be  deferred,  or  even  dispensed  with.  Where 
foreign  mercliants  are  made  consuls  the  rules  of  examination  do  not  apply. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  313 

fees  and  the  payment  of  expenses.  The  English  system 
makes  the  character  and  capacity  of  its  ofncial  representatives, 
the  great  interests  of  its  commerce,  the  certain  protection  of 
its  citizens,  and  the  preservation  of  the  national  prestige  and 
honor,  paramount  objects.  All  the  world  knows  the  character 
and  capacity  of  the  British  Consular  Service.  And,  I  hardly 
need  add,  in  view  of  the  explanations  given,  that  political  pres- 
sure and  personal  sohcitation  for  appointments,  in  the  foreign 
service  of  Great  Britain,  appear  to  be  as  much  less  than  they 
are  in  our  own  as  the  standards  of  her  quahfications  for  such 
service  are  liigher  than  those  we  enforce. 

Parliament.  After  the  explanations  already  made,  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  members  of  Parliament  have, 
practically,  ceased  to  possess  patronage.  They  must,  in  their 
election  contests,  make  their  appeal  for  support  on  the  princi- 
ples of  their  party  and  their  own  worth  as  men.  Officers, 
places,  or  promotions  in  the  pubhc  service  can  no  more  be 
bartered  for  votes  or  peddled  for  influence.  Parliamentary 
patronage — that  prolific  and  degrading  element,  for  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  one  of  the  great  curses  of  British  politics — is 
substantially  no  more,  and  no  one  mourns  its  loss  or  denies 
its  corruption. 

The  same  influences  which  have  raised  executive  appoint- 
ments above  the  corruption  of  Parhamentary  traffic  have,  in 
the  same  spirit,  made  themselves  felt  within  the  doors  of  the 
two  Houses.  "We  might  easily  go  back  to  the  time  when  the 
appointment  of  the  subordinate  officers  and  clerks  of  Parlia- 
ment was  attended  with  personal  contests  as  desperate,  with 
management  as  lamentable,  with  a  subordination  of  worth  and 
experience  to  partisan  interests  and  ambition  as  much  to  be 
deplored,  as  any  which  liave  ever  been  witnessed  in  our  legis- 
lative bodies.  Only  a  faint  remnant  of  such  abuses  has  sur- 
vived the  later  reforms  in  Great  Britain.  As  a  nile,  these 
clerks  and  officers  of  Parhament  go  on  from  session  to  session 
in  the  orderly  and  satisfactory  discharge  of  their  functions, 
which  are  in  no  proper  sense  political.  They  are  required  to 
pass  an  examination  before  the  Civil  Service  Commission, 
which  is  sufficiently  stringent  to  secure  an  order  of  capacity 
quite  beyond  what  a  mere  partisan  struggle  is  competent  to 


311  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GEEAT  BRITAIN. 

supply,  to  say  nothing  of  the  saving  of  time,  temper,  and 
dignity.' 

In  tlie  House  of  Lords,  an  officer  (the  Clerk  of  Parliaments) 
with  a  tenure,  which  in  practice  continues  during  good  beha- 
vior, selects  the  persons  to  be  examined  for  clerkships,  and  in 
the  House  of  Commons  the  selection  is  made  by  the  Libra- 
rian, who  holds  his  place  by  the  same  tenure.  These  clerk- 
ships, I  am  assured  by  high  authority,  are  looked  upon  by 
members  as  without  political  significance,  and  the  discharge  of 
their  duties  is  not  regarded  as  affected  by  partisan  considera- 
tions. The  dignity  of  legislative  functions  is  no  longer  de- 
graded either  by  petty  wrangles  about  readers,  engrossers,  and 
messengers,  or  by  general  contests  in  the  interest  of  local 
patronage,  rival  factions,  or  ambitious  leaders. 

I  have  already  so  fully  called  attention  to  the  demorahzing 
influences  which  an  interest,  on  the  part  of  the  members  of 
the  legislature,  in  appointments,  promotions,  removals,  and 
salaries  in  executive  departments,  has  been  found  to  exert 
upon  their  independence  and  their  disposition  toward  reforms, 
that  nothing  need  be  added  in  this  connection.*  If  any 
changes  from  the  old  system  could  be  greater,  in  the  relations 
of  members  of  Parliament,  than  those  which  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  it  would  be  their  present,  happy  exemption  from 
the  harassing  and  exasperating  importunities  of  office-seekers 
and  demagogues,  by  which  their  predecessors  had  been  tor- 
mented during  more  than  a  century  and  a  half.  I  ought  to 
add,  as  a  part  of  the  reform  brought  about  in  Parliament, 
that  contested  election  cases  have  been  practically  removed 
from  the  forum  of  the  party  majority  to  the  decision  of  the 
judicial  tribunals,  which  would  seem  to  have  caused  great 
relief  to  Parliament  and  great  gains  to  justice. 

It  must  not  be  understood,  because  my  illustrations  extend 
no  further,  that  the  new  method  is  confined  to  the  great  depart- 

>  I  may  mention,  by  way  of  ilhistration,  that  the  present  Clerk  of  the 
House  of  Commons  is  Sir  Thomas  Erskine  May,  the  accomplished  author  of 
the  "  Constitutional  History  of  England,"  so  often  quoted  in  these  pages  ; 
and  also  of  "  Democracy  in  Europe,"  with  which  he  evidently  has  liberal 
sympathies. 

'  Questions  upon  the  enactment  of  laws  were  continually  complicated  by 
questions  of  Parliamentary  patronage. — Report  on  Civil  Service,  1860. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  315 

ments.  On  tlie  contrary,  it  is  in  force  in  nearly  all  the  execu- 
tive offices.  Legislative  officers  are  the  representatives  of  polit- 
ical opinions  and  private  interests,  of  whose  qualifications  the 
people  judge  for  themselves  ;  and,  from  the  very  nature  of 
their  duties,  such  officers  must  be  guided  by  views  of  politics 
and  theories  of  policy.  To  their  selection,  therefore,  the 
popular  judgment  must  put  the  only  conditions.  The  judges 
are  so  few  in  number  that  it  is  quite  practicable  that  every 
appointment  should  be  made  upon  the  personal  knowledge  of 
the  executive  ;  and  public  observation,  in  every  case  of  their 
selection,  is  too  great  and  discriminating  to  allow  that  secrecy 
which  elsewhere,  under  the  old  system,  so  facilitated  the  vic- 
tory of  favoritism  and  partisanship.  It  has  been  no  more 
needful  than  it  is  practicable,  therefore,  to  extend  the  new 
methods,  in  the  legislative  and  judicial  departments,  beyond 
their  clerical  force. 

I  need  not  enter  into  details,  which  would  be  tedious,  con- 
cerning the  selections  and  promotions  in  the  many  subordi- 
nate offices.  But  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  national 
offices  and  affairs  are  by  no  means  as  restricted  in  Great 
Britain  as  in  the  United  States.  They  include  nearly  all  those 
parts  of  civil  administration  which  with  us  fall  to  the  several 
States,  and  a  great  deal  which  with  us  falls  to  municipalities. 
The  officers  of  some  of  the  prisons,  of  the  national  asylums,  of 
the  Board  of  Public  Works  (carrying  on  a  large  part  of  the 
municipal  work  in  London),  of  the  Poor  Law  administration, 
of  a  great  part  of  the  sanitary  administration  (being  all  that  car- 
ried on  by  the  nation),  of  the  British  Museum,  of  the  Ken- 
sington Museum,  of  the  national  galleries,  of  the  University 
of  London,  of  the  Charity  Commission,  of  the  Education 
Office,  of  the  Public  Pecord  Office,  of  %ie  Emigration 
Office,  of  the  Stationery  Office,  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  of 
the  Lighthouse  and  of  the  Life-Saving  Stations,  are  among 
those  appointed,  promoted,  and  removed  under  the  national 
civil  service  regulations,  and  on  the  basis  of  examinations  and 
competitions. ' 

It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that  neither  these  rules  nor  any 

*  There  are  a  very  few  of  these  officers  to  whom  competition,  for  special 
reasons,  does  not  apply. 


316  CIVIL   SERVICE    liN"   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

modern  reforms  have  in  any  respect  centralized  administration 
or  made  it  national ;  but,  tlie  principles  of  the  reform  having 
been  found  salutary  in  the  great  departments,  liave,  for  that 
reason,  been  extended  to  the  places  mentioned,  wliich  were 
before  a  part  of  the  national  jurisdiction.  I  must  also  add 
that  (although  it  seems  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  include 
officers  of  the  army  and  navy  as  a  part  of  the  "  civil  service") 
when  those  in  the  civil  service  are  spoken  of  as  descriptive 
of  the  extent  of  the  application  of  examinations  and  compe- 
tition, they  must  be  understood  as  extending  to  admissions  to 
the  military  and  naval  schools  (which  stand  at  the  gates  of  office 
in  the  army  and  navy),  and  also  as  extending,  with,  1  think, 
some  exceptions,  to  the  officers  of  that  part  of  the  military 
force  which  most  nearly  corresponds  to  our  militia.  From 
these  explanations,  it  must  be  apparent  how  wide  and  varied, 
in  Great  Britain  and  India,  is  the  field  of  official  life,  political 
activity,  and  personal  ambition  and  jealousy,  which  is  now 
dominated  by  the  reform  methods.  They  extend  to  all  but  a 
very  few  of  the  highest  places  for  the  exercise  of  the  appoint- 
ing power  of  the  Crown.  They  are  supreme  through  almost 
the  whole  vast  range  of  what  was,  for  generations,  the  patron- 
age of  the  Treasury  and  of  meml)ers  of  Parliament ;  a  patron- 
age which  was  as  much  greater  than  that  of  our  heads  of 
departments  and  members  of  Congress,  as  their  authority 
would  be  greater  if  the  entire  legislative  and  executive  power 
of  the  States  was  made  a  part  of  the  Federal  jurisdiction. 
The  merit  system,  therefore,  with  its  tests  of  character  and 
capacity,  and  its  claims  of  justice  and  principle  against  favor- 
itism and  partisanship,  has  achieved  a  victory  over  patronage 
as  seductive  and  universal — has  suppressed  oiJjiortunities  of 
intrigue  and  c<irruption  as  varied  and  numerous — has  over- 
thrown a  tyranny  of  partisan  and  official  influence  as  pervading 
and  powerful,  as  would  be  involved  in  this  country  in  a  strug- 
gle which  should  draw  to  itself  every  selfish  and  partisan 
element — all  the  offices  and  gains — all  the  intrigue  and  influ- 
ence— all  the  hopes  and  fears — of  a  Presidential  cainpaign,  of 
Senatorial  contests,  and  of  elections  for  governors,  united  into 
one  grand  issue  dependent  upon  a  single  national  vote  at  the 
polls. 


CHAPTER  XXXr. 

SOCIAL,    MORAL,    AND   INTERNATIOXAL    BEARINGS    OF   THE 
NEW    SYSTEM. 

Women  brought  into  the  public  service. — The  social  position  of  the  Civil 
Service  raised. — Service  of  the  public  regarded  as  evidence  of  fitness  for 
private  service. — E.xaminations  and  competitions  applied  b^^  banks,  cor- 
porations, and  business  houses. — How  the  public  opinion  of  government  is 
affected  by  good  administration. — The  character  of  the  persons  brought 
into  office  by  the  old  system,  and  by  the  new. — "What  the  people  see 
honored  and  rewarded  in  the  practical  working  of  the  new  system. — 
Its  moral  and  educational  influence. — Effect  on  patriotism,  national 
prestige  and  prosperity. — Relations  of  revolutionary  tendencies,  from 
1830  to  1848,  to  Civil  Service  reform. — Influence  of  the  United  States  then 
at  its  maximnm. — British  statesmen  seeking  to  strengthen  monarchy  and 
exclude  republicanism  by  good  administration. — Their  success. — The  Euro- 
pean view  of  our  system. — Tendency  to  republicanism  has  declined. — 
Character  of  republicanism  in  France. — The  Holy  Alliance  and  the  posi- 
tion of  the  United  States  in  1815.— Civil  Service  reform  in  Sweden. — In 
Prussia. — Americans  humiliated  in  Europe. — Monarchists  declare  our 
partisan  system  inherent  in  republicanism. — Our  system  really  favorable 
to  rewarding  merit. 

I.  There  are  other  effects  of  the  new  system,  or  at  least  of  the 
influences  sustaining  it,  which  ought  not  to  he  overlooked. 
They  are  social  and  moral  as  well  as  political,  and  some  of 
them  are  in  a  sense  international. 

The  principle  that  appointments  should  be  made  on  the 
basis  of  character  and  capacity  as  tested  by  examinations,  was 
utterly  Inconsistent  with  the  further  exclusion  of  women 
from  the  public  service  merely  by  reason  of  their  sex.  And, 
as  a  consequence — in  a  country  where  women  had  been  de- 
pressed by  legal  restrictions  and  by  a  popular  sentiment,'  far 

'  This  spirit  found  expression  as  late  as  1873,  in  a  regulation  of  the  Re- 
turned Letter  Office,  which  forbade  women  being  entrusted  to  open  any  let- 
ters with  valuables.  They  were  to  be  opened  and  the  valuables  taken  out  by 
male  clerks,  on  the  presumption,  apparently,  that  women  are  not  by  naturg 

21 


318  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

more  unjust  than  have  ever  prevailed  in  the  United  States, 
— the  new  system  gave  them,  on  principle,  that  opportunity 
to  take  part  in  the  public  work  which  has  been  in  great 
measure  allowed  them  here,  rather  on  the  score  of  gallantry, 
or  by  reason  of  calamities  in  the  war  from  which  they  had 
suffered.  The  number  of  women  employed  in  public  posi- 
tions in  Great  Britain  is  steadily  increasing.  They  may  now 
be  seen  in  the  exclusive  charge  of  offices  in  the  postal  and 
telegraph  service,  which  they  have  won  by  open  competition 
and  manage  with  success  ;  and  these  new  opportunities  of 
usefulness  must,  I  think,  be  counted  as  among  the  principal 
causes  which  have  helped  on  the  great  improvement  in  the. 
education  and  in  the  intellectual  and  benevolent  activity  of 
women  (especially  of  the  middle  classes)  in  Great  Britain  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years.*     The   marked  executive  ability,  the 

as  honest  as  men.  And  the  head  of  the  office  expresses  great  surprise  that 
the  experiment  of  employing  women  had  been  "  a  perfect  success" — which 
"completely  surpassed  my  expectation."  Biit  the  women  have  steadily 
won  their  way,  vindicating  their  honesty  and  showing  there  is  no  need  of 
matrons.  So  great  was  the  distrust  and  hostility  on  the  first  employment  of 
women,  that  the  men  were  "  jealous"  of  the  innovation,  and  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  employ  "  a  matron"  to  take  special  charge  of  the  female  clerks. 
—Report  C.  S.  Inq.  Com.,  1873-5,  Vol.  I.,  p.  146. 

'  In  view  of  the  great  and  manifest  advantages  to  women  of  having  a 
means  of  access  to  such  kinds  of  public  employment  as  are  appropriate  for 
them,  far  removed  from  the  dirty  highway  of  partisan  politics,  and  in  all  par- 
ticulars compatible  with  their  modesty  and  self-respect,  it  seems  almost  in- 
credible that  any  sane  women,  however  eccentric,  should  be  found  justify- 
ing the  spoils  system  on  principle,  after  men,  who  by  reason  of  some  knowl- 
edge of  politics  are  more  discreet,  have  prudently  abandoned  all  attempts  at 
such  justification.  But  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  an  abnormal  class  of  women 
seem  to  have  been  the  last  to  practise  the  abuses  of  a  system  which  they 
may  as  consistently,  perhaps,  be  the  last  to  defend.  History  has  preserved 
the  name  of  Miss  Alice  Ferrers  as  among  the  foremost  in  political  corrup- 
tion in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  she  seems  to  have  been  as  bold  and  suc- 
cessful as  Mrs.  Jenks.  The  shameful  part  acted  in  court  politics  by  a  class 
of  women  under  the  Stuart  princes  is  familiar  history.  "Walpole,"  says 
Mr.  Bagehot,  "  declared  he  would  pay  no  attention  to  the  Queen's  daugh- 
ters" (those  "girls,"  as  he  called  them),  "  but  would  relj'- exclusively  on 
Madame  de  Walmoden,  the  King's  mistress."  The  Duchess  of  Kendall 
under  George  I.,  Mrs.  Clark  and  Mrs.  Cary  under  George  III.,  the  Marchio- 
ness of  Conyngham  under  George  IV. ,  appear  to  have  been  among  the  last  to 
practise  the  forms  of  political  corruption  for  which  they  were  notorious. 
Mr.  Bagehot  quotes  a  writer  under  George  IV.  as  saying,  ' '  The  King  is  in 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  319 

the  fidelity  and  decorum  illustrated  in  the  official  conduct  of 
women,  not  merely  in  the  local  offices  and  central  depart- 
ments, but  in  the  London  School  Board  and  in  many  posi- 
tions of  high  responsibility,  have  done  much  to  change  an 
unjust  public  opinion  and  to  utilize,  for  the  benefit  of  society, 
the  capacity  and  moral  worth  of  the  female  sex,  which  that  opin- 
ion had  before  so  largely  excluded  from  opportunities  of  use- 
fulness. The  memorable  work  of  Florence  Xightingale  in  the 
Crimea  was  as  much  a  duty  of  public  administmtion  as  of 
Christianity — as  much  in  the  interest  of  economy  as  of  hu- 
manity— and,  in  the  schools,  in  the  poor  law  boards,  in  the* 
prisons,  in  the  public  asylums  and  hospitals,  in  sanitary  admin- 
istration, and  in  many  other  ways,  the  beneficent  results  of 
the  new  opportunities  opened  to  women  have  been  felt. 

While,  for  reasons  sufficiently  indicated,  we  may  well  fear 
that  the  honor  and  dignity  of  office  in  the  abstract,  and  the 
respect  in  which  the  people  hold  their  public  servants,  have 
been  falling  during  the  last  forty  yeai-s  in  the  United  States, 
it  would  seem  to  have  been  quite  otherwise  in  Great  Britain. ' 
We  have  seen  that  it  has  been  little  more  than  a  century  since 

our  favor,  and,  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  the  Marchioness  of  Conyngham 
is  so  too. "  But  such  instances,  1  am  persuaded,  only  sliow  the  extravagances 
of  exceptional  characters  when  out  of  their  sj)here,  and  are  in  wide  contrast 
with  the  almost  universal  feeling  and  recognized  interest  of  the  sex  on  the 
subject  of  civil  service  reform.  I  cannot  think  that  the  many  gifted  and 
well -instructed  women  who,  to  the  great  advantage  of  society  and  of  them- 
selves, are  more  and  more  turning  their  attention  to  the  moral  and  social  prob- 
lems of  the  day,  will  long  omit  to  bring  their  powerful  influence  to  bear  in 
behalf  of  a  system  which  stimulates  and  rewards  virtue  and  education  on 
the  part  of  their  children,  and  opens  to  women  a  respectable  and  honor- 
able way  of  reaching  the  public  service  ;  while  it  repudiates  those  coarse  and 
corrupt  methods  in  politics  from  which  so  many  worthy  women  suffer,  and 
which  every  true  woman  abhors.  But  even  exceptional  and  unfortunate 
women  ought  to  welcome  the  new  system,  which  has  opened  to  them  a  new 
way  of  hope  and  consolation.  For,  of  the  first  trial  of  examinations  and 
competitions  for  school  teachers,  it  is  said  "that  the  females  have  been  so 
far  advanced  in  mental  power  and  influence  as  to  have  been  lost  to  the  ser- 
vice by  matrimonial  engagements  obtained  with  exceeding  rapidity.  To 
avoid  these  losses,  plainer  candidates  were  selected  for  training,  but  they 
too  have  attained  preferences  as  wives  to  a  perplexing  extent." — Civil  Ser- 
vice Papers,  p.  139. 
'  For  facts  bearing  on  these  points,  see  Appendices  A  and  B. 


320  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

the  subordinates  in  her  civil  service  were  without  legal  recog- 
nition— the  mere  hirelings  of  superior  officers — and,  until  a 
very  recent  period,  they  appear  to  have  had  comparatively  little 
social  consideration  or  self-respect.  And  how  could  it  be  other- 
wise, when  the  consciousness  of  servility  and  dependence,  and 
the  scandalous  repute  of  patronage  and  favoritism,  through 
which  places  in  the  public  service  were  gained,  were  at  once  a 
humiliation  and  a  taint  ?  But  as  soon  as  those  places  became 
the  rewards  of  personal  merit,  so  that  an  official  position  was, 
in  itself,  evidence  of  good  reputation  and  good  capacity — of 
.attainments  that  had  not  been  surpassed  in  an  open  compe- 
tition— of  a  character  that  could  not  be  impeached  by  a  rival 
in  a  public  contest — ^it  was  natural  that  the  estimation  of  the 
civil  service  should  rise  with  its  real  worth.  There  was  no 
longer  any  reason  why  its  members  should  not  take  rank 
with  the  officers  of  the  array  and  navy  in  sharing  the  social 
honors  of  the  people.  And  such  appears  to  be  now  the  fact 
in  Great  Britain.'  AYith  a  manly  pride,  an  officer  in  that 
service,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  sends  his  card,  with 
the  words,  "  Of  her  Majesty's  Civil  Service,^^  upon  its  face, 
with  a  certainty  that,  everywhere  among  his  own  countrymen, 
and  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  where  the  reputation  of  that 
service  is  known,  it  will  be  at  once  accepted  as  a  certificate  of 
character  and  an  aid  to  social  attention.  The  same  thing, 
and  for  like  reasons,  may  be  said  of  our  officers  of  the 
army  and  navy  ;  and  I  know  of  no  single  fact  that  so  strik- 
ingly and  so  painfully  marks  that  silent  but  severe,  popular 
judgment,  according  to  which  the  methods  of  gaining  the 
official  places  of  peace  and  industry  consign  those  who  fill  them 
to  an  inferior  rank  in  the  scale  of  social  life.  How  long 
would  officers  of  our  army  or  navy  hold  their  social  prestige 
or  retain  their  claims  upon  public  confidence,  if  they  reached 
their  positions  through  methods  as  partisan  and  as  regardless 
of  capacity  and  attainments  as  those  which  have  secured  most 
of  the  places  in  our  civil  service  ?  To  give  to  the  civil  officers 
of  the  nation,  of  corresponding  grade,  a  social  rank  equal  to 
that  of  officers  in  the  army  or  the  navy — a  rank  which,  if 

^  See,  on  these  points,  the  letter  of  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  in  Appendix  A. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIX".  321 

selected  by  means  considered  equally  pure  and  honorable, 
they  would  surely  take — involves  the  wliole  problem  of  civil 
service  reform  ;  and  in  the  discrimination  now  made  we  may 
see  both  the  proof  and  the  measure  of  the  public  estimate  of 
corruption  in  our  politics. 

In  1854,  an  EngHsh  officer  of  great  experience  used  this 
language  :  "  I  am  assured  that  the  fact  of  previous  service  in  the 
government  offices  has,  in  reality,  operated  as  a  powerful  objec- 
tion to  candidates  for  employment  in  commercial  houses.  .  .  . 
It  would  be  practicable  to  reverse  the  present  general  condition 
of  the  civil  service,  and  to  make  the  fact  of  service  in  a  public 
office  a  recommendation  not  only  for  any  social  standing,  .  .  . 
but  for  efficiency."  '  And  after  six  years'  experience  of  com- 
petition, another  officer  made  this  prediction  :  "I  have  no 
doubt  that  private  persons  will  find  it  for  their  interest  by  and 
by  to  institute  competitions  of  this  kind  in  order  that  they  may 
get  the  best  clerks  ;  indeed,  very  large  numbers  of  public  and 
private  persons,  merchants,  bankers,  directors  of  railroads,  and 
managere  of  public  companies,  have  signed  a  declaration  ap- 
proving of  the  scheme  of  examination.     .     .     ."* 

These  anticipations  have  already  been  fully  realized. 
Not  only  has  the  government  been  much  troubled  by  reason 
of  private  persons  and  corporations  endeavoring  to  get 
away  the  superior  men  and  women  which  the  new  system 
has  brought  into  the  public  service,  but  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  has  been  compelled  to  refuse  the  applications 
of  persons  who  for  private  ends  have  sought  the  honor  and 
advantage  of  an  examination  before  it.  Js^or  is  this  all ;  for 
large  corporations,  whose  employes  are  too  numerous  for  in- 
telligent, personal  selection,  have  adopted  the  methods  of  ex- 
amination and  competition,  which  the  success  of  the  govern- 
ment has  commended  to  their  attention. 

For  example,  the  great  London  printing  house  of  Spottis- 
woode  instituted  examinations '  for  its  clerks  as  early  as  1854. 
The  Bank  of  England  has  not  only  established  a  system  of  ex- 
aminations for  clerkships,  but  it  has  found  its  advantage  in  a 

'.  Civil  Service  Papers,  1854,  p.  138. 

'  Report  on  Civil  Service  Appointment,  1833,  p.  288. 

'  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  14. 


322  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

gradual  increase  of  salary  and  in  a  superannuation  allowance 
on  retirement,  according  to  fixed  regulations,  in  close  analogy 
to  those  which  prevail  in  the  public  service.  The  Railway 
Clearing  House,  employing  nearly  fifteen  hundred  clerks,  has 
examinations  for  their  admission  (so  rigid  that  sometimes 
fourteen  out  of  fifteen  applicants  have  been  rejected  at  a  sin- 
gle trial)  and  a  system  of  competition  for  promotion  to  the  higher 
grades  ;  and  to  these  it  has  added  a  superannuation  fund  and 
a  savings  bank,  in  aid  of  both  economy  and  efficiency  in  its 
clerical  force.  The  London  and  "Westminster  Bank,  employ- 
ing about  four  hundred  and  fifty  clerks,  has  adopted  competi- 
tion for  admission  to  its  employment ;  and,  abandoning  favorit- 
ism, it  has  also  established  a  regular  system  of  promotion 
for  merit  ;  and,  like  many  other  great  establishments,  it  has 
found  its  profit  in  graded  salaries  and  retiring  allowances. ' 

II.  The  silent  effect  of  administration,  everywhere  carried 
on  before  the  eyes  of  the  people,  by  officers  who  have  secured 
their  positions  by  reason  of  personal  worth,  tested  by  open 
and  honorable  means,  is,  I  am  persuaded,  both  great  and 
salutary.  Into  whatever  offices  you  may  enter,  whether 
they  be  those  of  the  light-house  or  life-saving  stations  along 
the  shores,  of  the  custom-house  service  in  the  commercial 
cities,  of  the  postal  or  inland  revenue  administration  anywhere 
in  the  interior,  of  the  vast  departments  of  London  or  of  India 
— you  do  not  find  servile  officers  and  clerks  who  have  gained 
their  places  either  by  the  influence  of  members  of  Parliament 
or  by  the  importunity  of  great  politicians,  but  men  of  self- 
reliance,  who  have  succeeded,  through  public  competitions,  in 
which  they  established  the  highest  capacity  and  character. 
And  for  these  reasons  they  are  no  man's  men — no  party's 
agents — no  officer's  dependents — but  self-respecting,  competent 
public  servants,  standing  on  their,  own  worth,  taking  an  honest 
pride  in  their  record,  and  commanding  the  respect  of  their  fel- 
lows and  of  the  community.  It  is  only  necessary  to  compare  the 
social  and  political  elements  thus  brought  into  the  public  service, 
with  those  which  find  representation  there  under  a  system  of 
spoils  and  favoritism,  in  order   to  get  a  clear  view  of  the 

'  See  First  Rep.  of  Civil  Service  Inq.  Com.,  1875,  pp.  179  to  181,  204 
and  205,  and  230  to  233. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  323 

very  different  effects  wliicli  tlie  two  methods  exert  upon 
political  action  and  public  morality.  Even  under  tliat  vicious 
system,  there  are  unquestionably  many  worthy  persons  appoint- 
ed, and  they  are,  of  course,  indispensable  ;  but  how  great  a  por- 
tion of  all  to  be  met,  in  passing  through  public  offices,  filled 
under  that  system,  have  reached  their  places  for  reasons  or  by 
means  that  would  not  bear  publicity  ?  Here  are  those  whose  pres- 
ence marks  the  corrupt  victory  of  a  local  faction  or  the  vicious 
influence  of  unscrupulous  party  managers ;  there  are  the  men 
whose  appointments  prevented  an  exposure  by  a  great  officer  or 
hushed  the  just  complaints  about  a  local  office  ;  at  these  desks  are 
the  men  who  did  immoral  work  in  the  last  election,  and  at  those 
the  men  who  are  expected  to  do  such  work  in  the  next  election  ; 
this  man's  fraud  gave  one  member  his  seat,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  that  incompetent  clerk  secured  from  another  mem- 
ber his  vote  ;  in  this  bureau  is  the  bankrupt  cousin  of  a 
governor,  and  in  that  the  unworthy  dependent  of  a  sec- 
retary. The  natural  influences  from  such  examples  in  the 
great  departments  pervade  every  part  of  the  country,  and 
are  felt  in  every  political  meeting  and  at  every  family  fireside, 
moulding  the  common  opinion  of  politics,  tainting  the  air  in 
official  places,  lowering  the  popular  estimate  of  public  life, 
degrading  government  in  the  eyes  of  the  people.  The  old 
spoils  system,  which  Great  Britain  has  destroyed,  said  to  young 
men  seeking  office  :  "  Politics  is  a  game  of  intrigue  and 
influence  ;  court  the  great  politicians  who  can  force  your 
nomination ;  be  submissive  to  corrupt  officials  and  excuse 
their  sins  ;  attack  no  popular  abuse  which  may  deprive  you  of 
influence."  The  new  system  says  to  him  :  "  Ofli,cial  life  is 
a  place  of  duty  and  responsibility  ;  preserve  a  character  so 
pure  that  no  rival  can  'attack  it  if  you  compete  with  him  ; 
make  yourself  so  well  informed  that  you  cannot  be  defeated 
in  the  examinations  ;  stand  manfully  for  principles  and  fear  not 
to  expose  abuses  ;  condemn  all  intrigue  and  manipulation  for 
deceiving  or  coercing  the  people. ' ' 

I  am  convinced  that  the  salutary  effect  of  the  new  system 
has  been  felt  not  only  in  every  part  of  the  empire,  but  in 
every  grade  of  life.  Mr.  May  declares  that  the  authority  of  the 
crown,  formerly  wielded  haughtily  as  a,  power,  is  now  "  held 


324:  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

in  trust  as  it  were  for  the  benefit  of  the  people. "     Every  place 
I   which   the   son  of  a  farmer   or  sailor  has  been  able  to  win 
I   through  competition,  has  been  lost  both  to  the  arbitrary  dis- 
cretion of  the  crown    and  to  the  class  interest   of  the   no- 
bility ;  and  it  has  not  the  less  been  taken  from  the  vicious 
capital  of  the  demagogues  and  the  pawnbrokers  of  politics — 
from  the  prizes  to  be  won  by  manipulation,  intrigue,  and  cor- 
ruption.     "  I  am  not  indifferent"  (says  a  distinguished  leader 
of  the  British  Parliament)  "  to  the  consideration    that  these 
/        offices  have  become  the  patrimony  of  the  poorer  part  of  the 

'  middle  class,  or  even  perhaps  of  the  working  class. "  '  "I 
consider  that  public  office  is  a  solemn  trust,  and  that  one  of 
the  most  important  conditions  is  to  choose  the  best  possible 
men  for  the  different  places. ' ' " 

Such  is  the  spirit  of  the  new  power  in  British  politics, 
and  the  tendency  of  the  reform,  which  the  people  support 
with  a  genuine  enthusiasm.  The  consequences  have  been  not 
merely  that  royal  and  aristocratic  authority,  as  well  as  in- 
trigue and  venal  influence,  have  been  limited  ;  that  educa- 
tion has  been  encouraged  ;  that  common  justice  has  been  pro- 
t^'      moted  ;    that  partisan   tyranny  has  been  arrested  ;  that  cor- 

\  rupt  elements  have  been  taken  out  of  elections  ;  ^  but  govern- 
ment itself  has  been  presented  to  the  people  as  having  a  purer 
character  and  nobler  ends — as  based  on  principles  and  recog- 
nizing duties,  and  not  merely  as  a  merciless  and  selfish  power 
always  yielding  to  the  greater  influence,  however  vicious,  and 
forever  ready  to  turn  to  advantage  the  services  of  agents, 
however  corrupt.  The  people  are  enabled  to  see  the  govern- 
ment everywhere  seeking  and  honoring  the  best  capacity  and 
character  among  them,  everywhere  repudiating  servility  and 
manipulation,  everywhere  defeating  *  partisan  intrigue  and 
ofiicial  prostitution,  everywhere  affirming  that  fidelity  to  prin- 
ciples and  to  public  interests  is  an  obligation  paramount  to  all 
the  selfish  claims  of  individuals  and  of  parties.  They  take 
notice  that  skilful  methods  have  been  elaborated,  and  that  they 
are  carefully  applied,  for  the  purpose  of  separating  the  worthy 

'  Evid.  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Parlia.  Report,  1873-4,  p.  231. 

'  Report  Investigation  Committee,  1874-5,  Vol.  II.,  p.  103. 

'  Sac  Letters  of  John  Bright  and  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  Appendix  A. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  325 

from  the  unworthy,  among  the  thousands  who  press  for  places 
under  the  government.  They  find  that  if  their  sons  or  their 
daughters  would  gain  public  places,  what  is  most  essential  is  not 
that  they  should  be  servile  to  great  officials,  or  great  lords,  or 
great  partisan  managers,  but  that  their  pri7ate  lives  should  be  so 
unspotted  that  they  cannot  be  assailed  by  rivals,  and  that  their 
attainments  should  be  so  respectable  that  they  cannot  be 
thrown  out  in  competition.  They  see  in  the  great  army  of 
sixty  thousand  civil  servants,  not  a  body  of  men  and  women, 
the  greater  portion  of  whom  high  officials  and  political  cliques 
have  pushed  into  their  places  for  ends  of  their  own,  and 
whose  stay  there  depends  more  on  their  servility  than  on  their 
merits,  but  they  see  a  body,  each  member  of  which  secured 
his  place  through  personal  qualities  which  are  as  honorable 
to  their  possessor  as  they  are  useful  to  the  nation.  They 
take  notice  that  the  new  system — which,  by  making  elections 
turn  on  principles  and  not  on  patronage,  invites  worthy  men 
not  seeking  office  to  take  part  in  politics — has,  at  the  same 
time,  removed  the  larger  part  of  these  elements  which  most 
attract  the  vicious  and  the  corrupt,  and  most  disgust  the  pure 
and  the  patriotic.  In  short,  they  see  the  vast  machinery  of 
government  itself — the  most  potent  of  all  human  influences 
for  raising  or  lowering  the  character  and  prosperity  of  a  na- 
tion— no  longer,  as  formerly,  a  prolific  source  of  fraud  and 
immorality — no  longer  in  alliance  with  the  most  venal  ele- 
ments of  politics  ;  but  a  mighty  force  in  the  interest  of  edu- 
cation, justice,  and  public  virtue  —  a  discriminating  power 
that  embodies  and  appeals  to  the  higher  intelligence  and  the 
nobler  sentiments  of  the  nation.  Such  an  influence  and  ex- 
ample, when  continued  for  a  considerable  period  in  Great 
Britain,  will,  1  am  persuaded,  disclose  beneficent  conse- 
quences of  which  the  whole  civilized  world  will  take  yet  more 
emphatic  notice.  The  rapid  growth  of  her  prestige  and  com- 
merce, and  the  great  capacity  for  government  disj)layed  by 
her  within  recent  years  in  so  many  parts  of  the  world,  are, 
I  am  compelled  to  believe,  closely  connected  with  the  charac- 
ter of  her  consular'  and  diplomatic  service,  and  are  by  no 

'  For  a  comparison  between  Aaicrican  and  British  consular  service,  see 
Appendices  A  and  B. 


.1 


326  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

means  independent  of  the  worth  and  capacity  that  pervade 
every  part,  and  not  in  the  least  degree  tlie  higher  jDart,  of  her 
domestic  administration.  Ability  and  experience  in  the  lower 
official  grades  invite  and  can  be  controlled  only  by  ability  and 
experience  in  the  higher  grades.  The  public  service,  instead 
of  being  longer  a  source  of  corruption,  which  flows  out  upon 
private  life,  has  become  a  sphere  of  manly  and  conservative 
virtues  which  are  a  strength  to  the  State  and  an  inspiration 
to  patriotism.  And,  how  else  can  we  explain  the  anomaly 
that,  through  all  these  later  years,  in  which  views  and  methods, 
thus  wholly  democratic  and  republican  in  their  tendency, 
have  been  rapidly  growing  before  the  eyes  of  the  British 
people,  the  old  spirit  of  loyalty  to  the  crown — fervent  devo- 
tion to  the  constitution — an  honest  and  pervading  belief  that 
no  system  of  administration  is  so  j)ure,  so  efficient,  or  so  abid- 
ing as  the  British  system — and  a  sturdy  purpose  to  maintain 
and  defend  them  all — have  survived  with  a  vigor  and  a  uni- 
versality unsurpassed  in  the  national  sentiment  of  modern 
times  ?  How  else,  but  upon  the  merits  of  her  administrative 
methods,  and  the  capacity  and  integrity  of  her  officials,  of  all 
grades,  in  her  many  dependencies,  and  under  such  diverse 
conditions,  can  we  explain  the  unrivalled  growth  of  the  power 
and  influence  of  Great  Britain  ?  And  can  any  one  doubt,  if 
the  old  system  of  George  III.  or  any  system  of  partisan  spoils 
and  official  favoritism  had  been  continued,  that  British  patriot- 
ism and  loyalty  would  have  decayed,  that  India  would  have 
been  lost,  that  the  Constitution  would  have  fallen  into  uni- 
versal weakness  and  decay,  or  that  despotism  would  have 
triumphed  over  liberty  and  law  ? 

III.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  broader  effects  of  the 
reform,  which,  transcending  all  mere  questions  of  economy  and 
internal  method,  have  deepened  the  fountains  of  patriotism 
and  made  monarchy  itself  dearer  to  the  British  people,  were 
not  wholly  unanticipated  at  the  opening  of  the  great  work  in 
1853  ;  nor  was  that  work  began  merely  to  remove  adminis- 
trative abuses  ;  but  it  was  expected  to  strengthen  the  very  bul- 
warks of  the  government  and  to  aid  in  averting  the  grave 
perils  which,  between  1830  and  18-18,  had  threatened  the 
thrones  of   all  the  leading  nations  of  Europe.     Sir  Charles 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  327 

Trevelyan  (wlio  ^vitl^  the  present  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer' 
first  set  forth  the  merit  system  in  their  celebrated  report  of 
1853)  puts  the  sense  of  peril  very  clearly  when  he  says,  "  the 
revoluntionary  period  of  1848  gave  us  a  shake  and  created  a 
disposition  to  put  our  Jiouse  in  order^  and  one  of  the  conse- 
quences was  a  remarkable  series  of  investigations  into  public 
offices  which  lasted  for  five  years,  culminating  in  the  .  .  . 
report."  "  Speaking  for  a  different  class  of  society,  at  about 
the  same  date,  Matthew  Arnold  says  :  "  The  growing  power 
in  Europe  is  democracy.  .  .  .  Our  society  is  destined  to  be- 
come much  more  democratic.  .  .  .  The  time  has  arrived  when 
it  is  becoming  impossible  for  the  aristocracy  of  England  to 
conduct  and  wield  the  English  nation  any  longer."  ^ 

Before  1848,  the  constitutional  system  of  the  United  States 
and  its  administration  had  probably  reached  the  maximum  of 
their  effect  in  Europe  in  favor  of  republican  institutions.  Until  ) 
near  that  date,  our  administration  had  generally  been  worthy  ) 
of  our  principles  ;  and  the  savage  partisanship  and  official  / 
corruption  with  which  we  were  then  first  becoming  familiar — 
and  which  marked  the  extent  of  our  fall  from  that  high 
standard  which  European  statesmen  had  recognized  in  our 
public  affairs — were  little  known  in  Europe  ;  so  that  our  polit- 
ical system  had  no  drawbacks,  and  stood  commended  in  for- 
eign countries  by  the  great  attractions  of  equality,  liberty,  and 
justice  upon  which  it  rests.  That  influence  was  then  pervad- 
ing and  considerable  in  every  enlightened  community  on  the 
continent ;  and  in  the  profession  of  republican  principles  at  the 
great  centers  of  thought,  and  in  revolution  or  in  tendencies  to 
revolution  in  many  quarters,  was  to  be  seen  the  measure  of  its 
peril  to  feudal  institutions  and  arbitrary  government.  If  the 
*'  shake"  which  such  fears  of  disturbance  gave  in  England 
was  less  violent,  it  was  not  less  significant,  than  on  the  conti- 
nent. Between  1840  and  1848  many  monster  meetings  were 
held  in  Great  Britain,  by  which  the  public  peace  was  threat- 
ened and  serious  anxiety  was  caused.  Responding  to  anned 
revolution  on  the  continent  for  popular  rights  in  1848,  the 

*  Sir  Stafford  Northcote.        »  Civil  Service  Inq.,  1873.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  100. 
*  Mixed  Essays,  pp.  7,  14  aud  27. 


c 


328  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

"  Chartists"  organizations  and  other  republican  sympathizers, 
with  their  demand  of  ' '  universal  suffrage,  the  ballot  and 
annual  parliaments,"  alarmed  all  England  by  their  lawless 
and  revolutionary  action.  A  petition,  said  to  bear  the  signa- 
tures of  five  millions  of  people,  was  backed  by  such  a  host, 
resolved  to  attend  its  presentation  to  Parliament,  that  170,000 
special  constables,  to  aid  an  army  with  artillery,  were  sworn 
in  for  keeping  the  peace  of  London.  It  was  under  such  a 
state  of  affairs  that  British  statesmen,  sustained  by  the  better 
public  sentiment,  carried  forward  five  years  of  investigations 
into  the  methods  of  government,  with  a  view  of  "  putting 
their  house  in  order."  A  peril  was  ujjon  the  nation,  and 
thouglitful  men  felt  its  gravity.  "  On  what  action  may  we 
rely  to  prevent  the  English  people  from  becoming  Ainerican- 
ized  f  .  .  .  \  answer  on  the  action  of  the  state. "...  They 
could  not  radically  change  the  British  constitution.  But 
they  could  make  reforms  that  would  ensure  pure,  eco- 
nomical, and  efficient  administration.  They  could  suggest 
to  the  crown,  and  they  could  compel  the  members  of  Par- 
liament, to  surrender  their  power  of  making  partisan  and 
selfish  nominations.  They  could  by  honest  and  equitable 
methods  open  the  public  service  to  the  whole  body  of  the 
people,  so  that  the  most  deserving  should  get  the  offices. 
They  could,  perhaps,  thus,  under  the  forms  of  a  monarchy, 
secure  to  the  people  nearly  all  the  practical  blessings  which  a 
real  republic  could  promise.  In  this  way  they  could,  per- 
chance, be  more  republican  than  the  great  republic  itself  ; 
and  through  such  means  present  monarchy  to  the  people — as 
enforcing  the  highest  possible  standard  of  official  duty — as 
having  more  regard  for  equality,  liberty  of  opinion,  and  re- 
spectability of  private  character,  than  a  republic  had  ever  ex- 
hibited. What,  therefore,  was,  in  form,  only  a  salutary 
method  of  administration,  was  in  intention,  and  in  broad  effect, 
a  conservative  force  in  government — a  barrier  against  republic- 
anism by  actually  conferring  blessings  which  republics  had 
given  only  in  theory — an  antidote  against  revolutions  by  put- 
ting in  practice  the  equality  and  justice  which  revolutions 

'  Bagehot's  English  Constitution,  p.  23, 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAtS".  329 

demanded,       "  Tlie   salutary   reforms   of  tliis  active   period 
averted  revolution.' 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  soon  after  18^8  the  sad  effects 
of  our  then  recently  developed,  partisan  system  were  present- 
ed before  Europe.  In  a  volume  published  by  the  British 
Government  in  1855  (which  quotes  continental  authority  for 
its  statements),  the  very  worst  abuses  of  British  administration 
are  said  to  have  "  the  prominent  features  of  i\\e  general  as  well 
as  local  administration  of  the  United  States.  These  features 
are  :  absence  of  any  special  qualifications  for  any  administra- 
tive service  unless  it  be  that  of  subserviency  ...  re- 
movability .  .  .  upon  every  change  of  party,  .  .  . 
an  increasing  distaste  to  pubhc  office,  and  the  consequent  ex- 
clusion from  it  of  the  most  accomplished  persons  in  society  ; 
the  lowering  of  the  efficiency  and  the  respectability  of  public 
administration  ;  the  retardation  of  its  progress  relatively  to  the 
general  progress  of  society  ;  and  a  tendency  to  increasing  cor- 
ruption concurrently  with  increased  party  feeling. "  ■'  "The 
whole  issue  is  based  on  a  single  election — on  the  choice  of  a 
president.  .  .  .  The  managers  of  the  contest  have  the  greatest 
possible  facility  for  using  what  I  may  call  patronage  bribery, 
.  .  .  and  the  efficiency  of  promised  offices  as  a  means  of  cor- 
ruption, is  augmented,  because  the  victor  can  give  what  he 
likes  to  whom  he  likes."  ' 

Such  is  the  character  of  our  administrative  methods  as  they 
have  been  understood  by  the  reading  people  of  Europe  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  "While  Great  Britain  (accompanied  by 
all  the  leading  European  States,  as  I  shall  more  fully  explain) 
has  been  carrying  forward  administrative  reform,  in  a  truly 
republican  spirit,  and  we  have  fallen  from  the  better  prece- 
dents of  our  history  down  upon  the  partisan  spoils  system  of 
her  less  civilized  times,  can  it  be  any  matter  of  surprise  that 
this  country — that  republican  institutions  as  we  represent 
them  among  the  nations — have  lost  a  great  part  of  their  in- 
fluence as  an  example  1  Is  it  strange  that  republicanism  has,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  water,  become,  to  a  sad  degree,  iden- 

'  Democracy  in  Europe,  by  May,  vol.  ii.  p.  495. ^ 

*  Civil  Service  Papers,  p.  150-2. 

3  Bagehot's  English  Constitution,  1873,  p.  264. 


330  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN". 

tified  with  extreme  partisanship,  a  low  standard  of  official 
capacity  and  integrity,  perpetual  agitation  about  petty  offices, 
and  management  and  manipulation,  where  ctatesmanship  is 
essential  ? '  It  is  Mr.  May's  judgment  that  there  is  far  less 
republicanism  and  democracy  in  England  (and  such,  I  believe, 
is  the  general  opinion  among  the  best  informed)  than  there 
was  thirty-five  years  ago.''  "  Freedom  and  good  government, 
a  generous  jDolicy,  and  the  devotion  of  rulers  to  the  welfare  of 
the  people  have  been  met  with  general  confidence,  loyalty, 
and  contentment.  .  .  .  The  constitution  .  .  .  has' 
gained  on  democracy. ' ' '  The  United  States  is  judged  as  a 
nation  not  so  much  by  the  noble  principles  of  its  constitution 
as  by  the  measure  of  purity,  economy,  and  capacity  to  be 
found  in  its  official  life,  and  by  the  style  of  men  who  fill  those 
high  places  where  experienced  statesmen  and  unselfish  patriots 
are  needed. 

' '  Outside  of  Switzerland  or  France '  there  can  hardly  be 

'  See  Appendix  B  for  consideratioas  bearing  on  these  points. 

"  Tlie  advance  of  democracy  referred  to  relates  rather  to  its  tendency  to 
attack  the  monarchical  form  of  government,  than  to  the  spirit  and  principles 
of  democracy  itself ;  for  they  have  advanced  continually,  and  in  no  way 
more  strikingly,  than  in  the  reformed  methods  in  the  civil  service,  which 
have  been  explained  in  this  volume. 

^  2  May's  Const.  Hist.,  p.  576. 

■*  The  great  republican  principles  of  equality,  liberty  and  justice  have  not, 
of  course,  lost  their  attraction  ;  and  in  establishing  them,  France  has  not 
.adopted  our  partisan  system,  but  retains  the  admirable  admin^Trafive  meth- 
ods which,  based  on  examinations  and  not  allowing  arbitrary  removals,  have 
aided  her  in  so  many  fearful  crises.  In  the  profound  changes  latelj'  brought 
about,  but  few  removals  have  been  made,  and  those  only  in  cases  where 
vital  principles  were  involved — less  in  all,  probably,  than  the  number 
we  should  make  upon  a  change  in  the  party  majority,  upon  the  election 
of  a  mayor  in  a  city  of  50,000  people.  Had  the  republican  leaders  of  France 
understood  that  a  change  to  a  republic  would  involve  the  substitution  of  our 
partisan-spoils  system  for  her  merit  system,  I  venture  to  think  France  would 
not  have  become  even  in  form  a  republic.  And  it  is  not  without  signifi- 
cance that  the  relation  of  her  cabinet  to  parties,  to  Parliament,  and  to  the 
civil  service,  is  more  analogous  to  that  of  Great  Britain  than  to  that  of  the 
United  States.  Indeed,  English  writers  seem  to  claim  the  new  French 
regime  as  a  reflection  of  the  British  system  :  "  The  Premier,  as  we  should 
call  him,"  is  nominated  and  removed  by  the  vote  of  the  National  Assembly  ; 
the  experiment  of  government  in  France,  the  position  of  31.  Thiers,  is  "  sin- 
gularly illustrative  of  the  English  Constitution." — (Bagehot's  English  Con- 
stitution, p.  45.)    The  example  of  France,  in  becoming  a  republic,  is  all 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  331 

said  to  be,  in  any  country  of  Europe,  a  strong  popular  move- 
ment towards  a  republic,  .  .  .  and,  unhappily,  the 
United  States  have  utterly  lost,  in  Europe,  that  influence  for 
republican  institutions  -which  was  so  potent  iii  the  first  half  of 
the  century. ' ' '  And  while  partisan  and  corrupt  administration 
has  so  damaged  us  abroad,  are  we  sure  it  has  been  less  destruc- 
tive of  patriotism  and  confidence  at  home  ? '  What,  but  the 
too  frequent  elections  and  the  corrupt  administration  which  a 
partisan  system  produces  and  requires,  has  raised  the  ominous 
question  "  Whether  popular  suffrage  is  a  failure  ?"  What,  if 
not  the  perpetual  struggle  for  patronage  and  the  absorption  of 
the  valuable  time  of  Congress  and  of  legislatures — required  by 
the  great  affairs  of  the  States  and  the  nation — in  demoralizing 
wrangles  over  clerkships,  postmasterships,  collectorships,  and 
the  many  petty  offices,  has  done  so  much  to  impair  the  just  and 
ancient  prestige  of  our  legislative  bodies  ?  What  is  it,  forever 
before  our  eyes  as  most  humiliating  and  disastrous  in  our 
public  life,  but  those  bargains,  intrigues,  prostitutions  and 
frauds  in  connection  with  getting  ofiice  and  holding  office, 
which  we  have  seen  that  a  merit  system  is  able  to  correct  ? 
Is  it  because  liberty  and  equality  are  less  prized  by  the  people 
as  their  intelligence  rises — because  the  great  principles  of  our 
constitution  are  distrusted  the  more  they  are  known— that 
republicanism  as  we  practise  it  has  lost  ground  in  Europe  ? 
Or  is  it  by  reason  of  a  bad  system  of  administration,  which, 
in  perfect  harmony  with  those  principles,  we  are  at  hberty 
to  reform  ? 

IV,  In  1815,  when  the  leading  sovereigns  of  Europe,  in 

the  more  instructive  and  encouraging,  because  she  has  become  such 
through  a  conviction  of  the  beneficence  of  republican  principles,  and 
not  through  the  seductions  of  a  partisan-spoils  sj-stem  of  office  ;  and, 
perhaps,  it  is  a  part  of  her  mission  to  teach  the  United  States,  from 
which  those  principles  were  borrowed,  how  they  may  be  applied  in  prac- 
tical affairs,  without  being  soiled  and  enfeebled  by  the  corruptions  of  that 
base  system  which  France  has  spurned.  For  some  facts  bearing  on  the 
Merit  System,  as  enforced  in  France,  especially  in  her  consular  service,  see 
Appendix  B. 

'  Princeton  Review,  May,  1878,  p.  737. 

'  For  facts  bearing  on  these  points,  see  Appendix  B,  and  John  Bright's 
letter  in  Appendix  A. 


832  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN"   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

the  "Holy  Alliance,"  declared  tliemselves  "delegated  by 
Providence  to  govern,"  and  that  they  "  looked  upon  them- 
selves, with  regard  to  their  subjects  and  their  armies,  as 
fathers  of  a  family,"  Great  Britain — which  alone  declined  to 
join — was  the  only  leading  monarchy  in  which  the  people  had 
an  effective  voice  in  the  government  ;  and  of  the  secondary 
class  of  monarchies,  Sweden — in  which  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury ability  to  read  and  write  had  been  a  condition  of  the  full 
privileges  of  citizenship — was  the  only  one  in  which  there  was 
a  constitutional  government,  giving  a  representation  of  popu- 
lar interests.  Since  that  date,  the  old  theory  of  a  divine  right 
to  rule — absolutism  and  clerical  domination — the  supremacy  of 
class  interests  and  the  monopoly  of  official  places  by  those  of 
noble  birth — have  yielded  to  the  claim  of  equal  rights,  and  to 
the  paramount  need  of  capacity  and  moral  worth  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  government  ;  but  in  this  advance  of  justice  and 
liberty,  Great  Britain  and,  in  some  degree,  Sweden  have 
maintained  their  old  precedence.  And  it  is  interesting  to 
find  that  in  Sweden  the  reform  of  the  civil  service — though 
not  sufficiently  excluding  opportunities  of  bureaucratic 
and  aristocratic  influence,  perhaps — has  been  attended  by 
results  closely  analogous  to  those  of  which  we  have  taken 
notice  in  Great  Britain.  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  fact 
that  the  principal  continental  states,  including  Sweden,  have 
greatly  reformed  their  civil  service  in  later  years,'  but  some 
further  facts  more  especially  relating  to  Sweden  (and  Norway 
being  under  the  same  king)  will  not  be  without  interest." 
That  government,  many  years  ago,  provided  for  the  examina- 
tion of  candidates  for  office.  The  standard  of  attainment, 
which  (like  that  first  fixed  in  the  British  service)  somewhat 
reflects  the  influence  of  an  aristocratic  class,  appears  to  be 
higher  than  in  Great  Britain,  and  may  perhaps  be  fairly 
objected  to  as  tending  to  give  a  needless  monopoly  to  highly 
educated  persons.  As  the  democratic  spirit  shall  gain 
strength,    the    standard    will   doubtless    be    lowered,    in  the 

'  See  ante  p.  10. 

"  The  facts  are  to  be  found  in  a  letter  of  Mr.  Andrews,  our  Minister  to 
Sweden,  dated  October  11,  1876,  and  in  "  Foreign  Relations  United  States, 
1876,"  p.  553-563. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  333 

interest  of  liumble  life,  so  as  to  include  only  the  qualifications 
essential  to  tlie  public  service.  The  king  has  patriotically  sur- 
rendered his  arbitrary  right  of  appointment,  for  the  sake  of 
obtaining  the  worthiest  men  for  the  service  of  the  state.  And, 
without  interference  from  the  members  of  the  legislature,  he 
uses  the  appointing  power  for  selecting  the  best  from  among 
those  examined.  The  severe  tests  of  character  and  capac- 
ity for  admissions  gives  the  service  a  social  rank  which  makes 
it  attractive  and  honorable.  The  tenure  of  office  is  much  the 
same  as  in  Great  Britain,  and  there  is  an  analogous  system 
providing  for  an  increase  of  pay  based  on  length  of  ser\dce  and 
for  retiring  allowances.  And  Mr.  Andrews  says  :  "  There  is 
no  doubt  but  the  high  respectability  and  rank  of  the  civil 
service  in  Sweden  tend  much  to  induce  people  to  enter  it." 
He  thinks  this  has  been  sometimes  allowed  to  draw  in  super- 
numeraries ;  and  it,  of  course,  causes  places  to  be  accepted  at 
a  lower  grade  of  salary  than  would  attract  young  men  into  a 
disreputable  service.  "  For  a  member  of  the  legislative 
branch  of  the  government,  as  such,  to  recommned  or  urge  the 
appointment  of  persons  in  the  civil  ser\dce  would  be  consid- 
ered intrusive,  and  would  have  no  weight,  certainly,  in  ex- 
cluding a  more  'meritorious  officer.  Anytliing  like  patronage 
does  not  obtain.  .  .  .  While  the  subordinates  have  the  free 
enjoyment  of  their  political  convictions  and  can  express  their 
opinions  and  vote  against  the  government,  it  is  never  their 
practice  to  seek  to  propagate  the  political  views  of  the  gov- 
ernment among  the  people.  .  .  .  Such  attempt,  whether  for 
or  against  the  government,  would  probably  excite  the  same 
feeling  that  would  be  excited  in  our  country  if  an  officer  of 
the  regular  army  or  of  the  navy  should  undertake  to  play  the 
party  politician.  It  is,  therefore,  considered,  here,  rather  of 
slight  importance  to  the  government  whether  civil  service  men 
are  included  among  its  political  supporters  or  noty  And 
here,  therefore,  as  in  Great  Britain,  we  are  shown  that,  if  the 
government  will  not  compel  its  officers  to  fight,  in  ever}^  cam- 
paign, for  their  places,  they  will  not  interfere  with  the  free- 
dom of  elections  or  waste  their  time  on  partisan  politics.  The 
abuses  we  suffer  in  those  regards  are  the  legitimate  outcome  of 
our  partisan  and  demoralizing  metliods.  Coming  to  the  effects 
22 


334  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT  BRITAI?!'. 

of  this  system  "upon  tlie  moral  tone  of  official  life  and  tlie 
safety  of  the  public  moneys,  Mr.  Andrews  shows  that  defalca- 
tions are  extremely  rare  ;  "  only  about  four  cases  of  defalca- 
tion a  year  on  an  average  ;"  and  that  the  government  almost 
never  lose  any  money.  "It  is  very  seldom  that  a  subordinate 
officer  is  .  .  .  even  charged  with  lesser  misdemeanors,  notwith- 
standing the  Rigsdag  appoints  and  pays  its  own  special  Attor- 
ney-General (under  the  constitution)  to  see  that  persons  in  the 
public  service  fulfil  their  duties,  and  to  accuse  them  before 
the  courts  of  justice  if  they  fail  to  do  so. ' '  It  hardly  need  be 
pointed  out  how  widely  different  is  the  attitude  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Swedish,  from  that  of  the  members  of  the  American 
Congress  toward  efficiency  and  integrity  in  official  life.  In 
the  one  case,  their  power  and  influence  are  used  to  push  per- 
sonal and  partisan  favorites  into  the  public  service,  and  to  keep 
them  there  ;  in  the  other,  no  such  selfish  and  demoralizing 
use  of  authority  stands  in  the  way  of  justice  to  the  public 
interests  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  special  officer  of  the  legislature 
has  a  duty  to  prosecute  in  its  behalf  every  unfaithful  servant  ; 
and  there  is  neither  any  party  nor  patron  pledged  or  spe- 
cially interested  to  screen  the  guilty.  With  such  a  system, 
we  sec  how  natural  it  is  that  defaults  should  so  rarely  occur, 
and  are  prepared  for  the  stern  dealing  with  official  dehn- 
quents  of  which  Mr.  Andrews  gives  examples.  One  of  the 
latest  is  that  of  a  whole  board  of  directors  of  a  charity  institu- 
tion at  Stockholm — "  all  prominent  citizens" — sentenced  to 
pay  thirty  thousand  crowns,  the  amount  lost  "for  lack  of 
proper  watchfulness"  in  the  custody  of  a  key  ;  each  of  two 
directors  having,  "without  wrong  intention,"  left  his  key 
with  the  same  third  officer,  during  an  absence  from  the  city, 
who  by  the  use  of  tlie  three  keys  was  able  to  embezzle  that 
amount  of  money. 

It  would  take  me  too  far  from  my  subject  to  separately 
point  out  how,  in  all  the  more  enlightened  European  states, 
since  1815,  and  more  especially  during  the  last  generation,  the 
old  claims  of  royalty  and  aristocracy,  of  church  and  class  inter- 
ests, of  favoritism  and  patronage,  the  social  prestige  of  cen- 
turies, and  the  old  theory  of  government  itself,  have  yielded 
to  the  paramount  need  of  high  character  and  capacity  in  the 
public  service,  and  to  the  just  and  equal  right  of  each  citizen, 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  335 

according  to  his  fitness,  and  irrespective  of  his  birth  or  party 
affiliations,  to  tender  his  claim  upon  that  service  and  have  its 
merits  impartially  considered.  And  it  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  on  the  continent,  as  in  Great  Britain,  improvements  in 
the  civil  service  have  everywhere  been  attended  with  a  great 
advance  in  popular  education,  and  in  legislation  for  the  pro- 
tection of  humble  life  ;  so  that  several  of  the  more  enlightened 
monarcliies  now  enforce  a  more  general  attendance  and  pro- 
vide for  and  secure  a  more  thorough  instruction  in  the  public 
schools  than  has  yet  been  attained  in  the  United  States.  The 
statistics  are  too  familiar  to  be  repeated  ;  but  the  concrete 
significance  of  the  main  fact  cannot  be  too  much  insisted  on — 
the  great  fact  that  the  leading  monarchies  have,  m  this  gen- 
eration, made  the  common  education  of  the  people,  ir.  the 
interest  of  patriotism,  justice,  and  general  prosperity,  more 
beneficent  and  universal  than  it  has  ever  yet  been  in  any 
republic  except  Switzerland. 

Y.  I  can  refer  to  only  a  single  other  example  of  Improved 
civil  administration  on  the  continent — that  of  Prussia.  Ref- 
erence has  been  made  to  the  civil  service  system  of  France,  as 
embodying  the  better  methods  ;  but  the  capacity  of  her  mili  - 
tary  officers  in  later  years  had  not  been  properly  attended  to. 
The  opinion  has  been  general  that  the  superior  capacity  of 
the  mihtary  oflBcers  of  their  enemy  caused  the  defeat  of  Austria 
and  France  in  the  late  wars  with  Prussia  ;  but  careful  ob- 
servers also  tell  us  that  "  Prussia,  whose  soil  and  physical 
resources  are  third  rate  in  quality  as  compared  with  those  of 
the  United  States,  while  in  magnitude  they  bear  but  slight 
comparison  with  ours,  owes  it  very  much  to  the  high  order  of 
efficiency  which  has  been  introduced  into  her  civil  service, 
that  she  has  risen  to  be  one  of  the  first  powers  in  the  world.'" 

Another  competent  observer  says,  "  Our  civil  service  should 
be  above  temptation  and  beyond  suspicion.  Prussia  has  such 
a  service.  The  pay  is,  indeed,  not  large  ;  but  it  is  graduated 
on  the  economical  habits  of  the  people.  The  service  is  hon- 
orable, and  brings  certain  social  consideration  ;  it  admits  of 
promotion  as  the  reward  of  merit,  and  it  ensures  a  pension  for 
the  decline  of  life. ' ' " 

'  "  Foreign  Relations  of  the  United  States,  1876,"  p.  553. 

'  "  The  United  States  as  a  Nation,"  by  Rev.  J.  P.  Thompson,  1877.  p.  261. 


336  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

In  a  government  in  wliich  so  strong  elements  of  aristocracy 
and  royalty  survive  as  in  Prussia,  ^xe  are  not  surprised  to  ob- 
serve tliata  phase  of  bureaucracy  and  a  tendency  to  favor  bigh, 
,■    literary  attainments  find   expression  in  tlie  ejcaininations  and 
/     perhaps  in  the  selections  for  the  civil  service  ;  but  despite  this 
I      lingering  of  the  old  spirit,  which  may  yet  do  some  injustice 
/    tqjiumble  life,  the  service  is  lifted  high  above  the  corruptions 
and  intrigues  of  partisan  politics,  and  men  of  capacity  and 
moral  worth  everywhere  stand  in  the  official  places  of  the 
nation,  and  were  the  leaders  in  the  great  events  which  have 
given  Germany  the  first  place  on  the  continent. 

If  considered  in  the  light  of  the  2Dast,  the  example  of  Prussia, 
as  an  illustration  of  the  effects  of  educating  the  people  and  of 
bringing  the  most  meritorious  of  them — rather  than  mere 
partisans  and  schemers — into  official  leadership,  is  all  the  more 
significant.  The  United  States  were  conspicuous  among  the 
nations,  not  only  for  the  general  intelligence  of  their  citizens,  but 
for  a  pure  and  able  civil  service,  and  for  a  common-school  system 
in  the  interest  of  all  their  children,  when,  in  1815,  Prussia,  far 
behind  in  the  education  of  her  people — with  a  great  part  of 
them  in  a  condition  hardly  above  serfdom — ^ysis  a  blind  and  arro- 
gant champion  of  the  "  Holy  Alliance,"  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  and  despotic  administration,  with  as  little  regard  for  the 
education  as  for  the  equal  rights  of  her  subjects.  But  the 
sober  reflections  caused  by  her  humiliation  by  Kapoleon  de- 
veloped in  the  minds  of  her  rulers  a  new  political  ^^hilosophy ; 
and  her  king,  or  the  great  statesman  Stein,  who  spoke 
through  the  king,  avowed  his  purpose  to  "  rehabilitate  the 
nation  by  devoting  the  most  earnest  attention  to  the  education 
of  the  masses  of  my  people."  That  work  was  promptly 
undertaken  and  has  been  firmly  pursued  ;  and  the  great 
results  are  well  known  :  j^erhaps  the  best  educated  people  in 
the  world — a  foremost  place  in  science,  art,  and  letters — the 
military  leadership  of  the  continent — a  civil  administration 
of  unsurpassed  purity  and  ability.*     Stein,  like  William  III. 

'  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  commend  the  Prussian  Government  as  a  model 
of  justice  or  wisdom,  and  in  various  particulars  it  exhibits  not  a  little  of  the 
old  spirit.  But  it  has  been  the  beneficent  methods  referred  to  which  have 
produced  so  great  results,  despite  all  drawbacks  that  have  existed. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN".  337 

(of  England),  was  the  first,  under  the  government  he  had  in 
charge,  to  appreciate  the  vital  importance  of  good  methods  in 
administration  ;  and  each  of  them  gave  the  subject  a  promi- 
nence which  in  later  years  it  has  never  lost.  The  German  states- 
man secured  the  gratitude,  and,  in  large  measure,  the  great- 
ness, of  his  country  by  three  great  measures  of  administrative 
reform — the  reorganization  of  the  army,  improved  municipal 
government,  and  the  "  constitution  of  the  Supreme  adminis- 
trative departments" — and  by  his  emancipation  of  the  serfs. 
It  has  been  by  such  means — by  surrendering  the  monopoly  of 
office,  which  had  been  supposed  to  be  essential  to  the  exist- 
ence of  a  crown  and  a  privileged  class — by  educating  the  com- 
mon people,  which  had  been  claimed  to  be  the  peculiar  virtue 
of  a  republic — by  freely  bringing  into  the  official  places  of  the 
nation  capacity  and  moral  worth  w^herever  found  among  the 
people — by  legislating  kindly  for  their  protection — that  royal 
and  aristocratic  governments  have  in  large  measure  averted 
the  hostility  that  threatened  them,  and,  at  the  end  of  two 
generations  of  great  advance  in  liberty  and  justice,  find  them- 
selves, perhaps,  stronger  in  the  confidence  and  patriotism  of 
their  subjects  than  they  were  in  the  beginning.  In  1833  we 
find  Mr.  Macaulay  saying,  "  I  see  nothing  before  us  but  a 
frantic  conflict  between  extreme  opinions,  ...  a  tremendous 
crash  of  the  funds,  the  church,  the  peerage,  and  the  throne. 
It  is  enough  to  make  the  most  strenuous  royalist  lean  a  little 
to  republicanism,  to  think  that  the  whole  question  between 
safety  and  general  destmction  may  probably  .  .  .  depend  on 
a  single  man,  whom  the  accident  of  his  birth  has  placed  in  a 
situation  to  which  certainly  his  own  virtues  or  abilities  would 
never  have  raised  him  ;"  and  he  even  predicted  that  the 
House  of  Peers  would  soon  have  to  give  place  to  an  elective 
chamber.'  I  think  it  may  be  safely  said  that  no  Englishman  of 
Macaulay 's  character  at  this  time  leans  even  "  a  little  toward 
republicanism  ;"  but,  on  the  contrary,  there  are  Americans 
who,  disgusted  by  the  magnitude  and  frequency  of  our  admin- 
istrative abuses,  and  not  comprehending  that  they  are  only  a 
neglected  excrescence  upon  the  abiding  virtues  of  republican 

'  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Macaulay,"  chaps,  v.  and  viii. 


338  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

institutions,  incline  to  lean  a  little  to  monarchy.  Of  that 
class  of  thoughtless  or  unpatristic  sympathizers  with  the 
sliowy  and  exclusive  features  of  aristocratic  governments,  I 
have  nothing  to  say  ;  but  not  a  few  sensible  and  patriotic 
republicans — some  from  their  experience  at  home,  others  from 
their  observations  and  discussions  abroad — have  had,  if  not 
their  faith  and  patriotism,  at  least  their  pride,  not  a  little 
disturbed.' 

Having  detected  the  point  at  which  republicans  may  be  put 
to  a  disadvantage,  the  active  supporters  of  monarchy  have  been 
so  successful  in  giving  prominence  to  the  evils  of  our  civil 
service  as  to  attract  the  attention  of  our  foreign  ministers, 
who  have  brought  the  fact  to  the  notice  of  the  President.* 
Prudent  monarchists  no  longer  deny  the  justice  and  beauty  of 
republican  principles,  theoretically  considered.  But  when  a 
government  is  established,  they  say  that  all  the  good  that  can 
be  got  out  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  effects  of  its  administra- 
tion. Administration  is  the  only  thing  practical  or  of  current 
interest.  All  else  is  theory  and  sentiment.  What  is  the 
advantage,  they  ask,  of  proclaiming  universal  liberty  and 
equality  in  the  constitution,  if  a  monarchy  really  provides  the 
best  education  for  the  children,  the  best  and  cheapest  courts  of 
justice  for  the  parents,  the  best  poor-law  and  sanitary  admin- 

*  The  humiliation  which  patriotic  Americans  have  suffered  abroad,  by 
reason  of  administrative  abuses  at  home  (which  I  can  all  the  better  appreci- 
ate from  having  spent  three  of  the  last  eight  years  in  Europe),  is  well 
illustrated  in  a  volume  already  cited,  "  The  United  States  as  a  Nation," 
Preface,  p.  vii.) :  "  When  I  announced  a  course  of  lectures"  (in  1876,  at 
the  time  of  the  Whiskey  Ring  and  District  of  Columbia  frauds),  .  .  . 
"  to  be  given  in  the  hearing  of  Europeans,  some  of  my  countrymen  were  of 
the  opinion  that,  in  the  painful  aspect  of  public  affairs  at  home,  it  were 
better  that  Americans  should  do  nothing  to  call  attention  to  their  country, 
already  the  subject  of  so  much  adverse  criticism."  I  ought  to  add  that  Dr. 
Thompson  did  not  follow  their  advice,  but  that  he  stood  manfully  and  patri- 
otically in  vindication  of  the  sound  principles  of  his  government ;  and  he 
would  seem  to  believe,  as  I  believe,  that  when  our  people  come  to  adequately 
understand  the  causes  of  the  abuses  which  exist,  they  will  be  found  to  pos- 
sess the  wisdom  and  virtue  needed  for  their  removal. 

"  "  Believing  most  sincerely  that  the  United  States  have  much  to  gain  in 
prosperity  at  home  and  in  reputation  abroad  by  a  reform  of  their  civil  service, 
and  as  the  subject  now  occupies  much  attention  tliere,"  etc. — "  Foreign  Rela- 
tions U.  S.,"  1876,"  p.  553. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IjST  GREAT  BRITAIN.  339 

istratlon  for  the  sick  and  tlie  destitute.  AVliat,  they  inquire, 
is  the  advantage  of  a  rej)ublican  senator  who  corruptly  worked 
his  way  to  an  election  through  a  partisan  caucus,  over  an  aris- 
tocratic lord  who  reached  his  seat  through  the  birthright  of 
an  ancient  family,  especially,  if  in  the  first  case  the  government 
permits  the  promises  made  to  be  discharged  by  the  prostitu- 
tion of  offices,  and  in  the  last,  no  such  prostitution  is  allowed  ? 
If  a  monarchy,  having  educated  the  children,  then  opens  alike 
all  the  offices  and  places,  high  and  low,  domestic  and  foreign, 
freely  to  public  and  manly  competition  by  any  and  every  citi- 
zen, so  that  character  and  capacity  have  an  unobstructed  way 
to  reach  the  positions  where  they  can  be  most  useful  and  hon- 
orable to  the  nation — what  more,  the  monarchist  demands,  can 
a  republic  offer — what  more  can  a  republican  patriot  ask  ? ' 

But  the  enemies  of  our  institutions  do  not  stop  with  these 
questions.  They  challenge  a  comparison  between  our  govern- 
ment and  theirs.  "  The  practical  choice  of  first-rate  nations  is 
between  the  presidential  government  and  the  parliamentary, 
.  .  .  and  nothing,  therefore,  can  be  more  important  than  to 
compare  the  two,  and  to  decide  upon  the  testimony  of  experi- 
ence, and  by  facts,  which  of  them  is  the  better. ' '  *  They  point 
to  the  debasing,  partisan  intrigues  through  which  so   many 

*  Of  course,  there  are  the  exceptions  of  the  king  or  emperor  and  of  the 
hereditary  members  of  the  legislature.  And  I  may  add  that  I  am  not  com- 
paring the  general  merits  of  the  two  kinds  of  government,  but  only  account- 
ing for  the  state  of  European  opinion,  and  for  the  loss  in  later  years  of  re- 
publican prestige  and  of  influence  on  the  part  of  th  United  States.  If  it  were 
any  part  of  my  purpose  to  make  such  comparison,  or  to  set  forth  the  unjust 
and  depressing  effects  of  an  hereditary  class  upon  humble  life,  many  other 
facts  would  of  course  need  be  stated.  I  am  not  unmindful  that  I  may  be 
denounced  as  unpatriotic  in  bringing  forward  facts,  not  creditable  to  my 
own  countr}' ;  but  it  is  enough  for  me,  that  these  facts  ought  to  be  under- 
stood by  the  American  people,  and  that  they  cannot,  without  dishonor, 
follow  those  pseudo-patriots,  who,  like  Turks  and  Mexicans,  having  substi- 
tuted conceit  for  patriotism  and  vanity  for  virtue,  remain  blind,  and  reck- 
less of  the  world  about  them,  while  claiming  for  their  countrymen  all  wis- 
dom and  perfection,  at  the  very  moment  that  other  nations  are  gaining  in 
the  race  of  civilization  and  liberty.  The  facts  presented,  I  have  hoped,  may 
help  to  recall  the  true  friends  of  the  republic  to  their  duty  and  to  encourage 
the  work  of  reform  which  shall  make  our  administration  worthy  of  our 
principles. 

'  Bagehot's  English  Constitution,  pp.  6G  and  07. 


340  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

unworthy  persons  gain  office  ;  to  the  many  removals  made  for 
poHtical  reason,  which  are  fatal  to  the  stability  and  experience 
essential  in  the  public  servdce  ;  to  the  constant  and  acri- 
monious contests  about  places,  which  exert  a  demoralizing 
influence  upon  elections  ;  to  the  frequent  condemnations  of 
our  whole  partisan  system,  and  the  exposure  of  its  scandals,  to 
be  found  in  our  literature,  in  the  debates  in  Congress,  in 
the  resolutions  of  national  conventions  ;  and  with  these  in 
hand,  and  in  presence  of  the  fact  that  the  evils,  which  the 
better  public  opinion  so  fully  condemns,  yet  go  on  unchanged 
from  decade  to  decade — they  argue  that  the  people  are  bet- 
ter than  their  government,  and  that  the  continued  existence  of 
the  evils  is  proof  of  the  inherent'  imbecility  and  peril  of 
republican  government,  and  that  they  should  be  accepted  as 
a  good  cause  for  a  return  to  monarchical  institutions.  They 
declare,  as  a  fact,  that  better  administration  in  Europe  than  in 
America  has  arrested  the  progress  of  republicanism,  and  main- 
tained the  prestige  of  royalty.  "  All  evidence,  therefore,  con- 
tradicts the  assertion  that  loyalty  has  declined  in  England.  It 
is  well  known  that  republican  speculations  have  occasionally 
been  ventured  upon,  but  they  have  found  no  favor  with  any 
considerable  class  of  society  ;  they  have  not  been  addressed  to 
a  single  constituency  ;  they  have  not  even  been  whispered  in 
Parliament ;  and  they  are  repelled  by  the  general  sentiment' ' 
of  the  country.' 

These  facts  and  arguments  have  not  been  reproduced,  I 
hardly  need  say,  because  they  are  agreeable  to  me  or  because 
I  am  indifferent  to  the  patriotic  feelings  of  the  reader,  which 
they  may  tend  to  disturb.  But  republican  institutions — their 
honor,  their  prospects,  their  hope  and  glory  in  the  world — are 
under  our  patronage,  as  the  leading  republican  State  ;  and  it 
is  not  only  our  duty  to  make  them  most  beneficent  at  home, 
but  to  take  care  that  they  be  not  needlessly  distrusted  or 
placed  at  a  disadvantage  abroad.  To  these  ends,  we  need  to 
look  the  facts,  however  disagreeable,  fully  in  the  face,  and  we 
must  not  allow  any  misapprehension  or  false  pride  to  bias  our 
judgment.     For  the  very  reason  that  a  republic  rests,  less  than 

'  Democracy  in  Europe,  by  May,  vol.  ii.  p.  501. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  34:1 

any  other  form  of  government,  npon  birtliright,  selfish  inter- 
ests, or  class  distinctions — for  the  very  reason  of  its  disinterest- 
edness, which  proclaims  liberty,  equality,  and  justice  for  all  ahke 
— it  needs,  more  than  any  other  kind  of  government,  to  exclude 
every  form  of  monopoly  and  proscription  in  bestowing  office, 
and  to  strengthen  and  adorn  itself,  by  bringing  into  its  ser- 
vice the  highest  worth  and  capacity  to  be  foimd  among  its 
citizens.  A  failure  to  bring  about  such  results  is  both  infidel- 
ity to  the  principles  of  a  republic  and  a  peril  to  its  safety  ; 
while,  on  the  contrary,  their  accomplishment  by  a  monarchy 
is  really  to  rise  above  its  essential  principles — to  elevate  the 
masses  at  the  expense  of  the  nobihty  and  the  crown  ;  a  conse- 
quence which  we  have  seen  the  enemies  of  reform  advance 
as  good  reasons  for  opposing  the  merit  system.  *  I  am  pro- 
foundly convinced  that  a  republic,  being  without  hereditary 
officers,  without  a  privileged  class,  without  a  state  church, 
without  feudal  traditions,  without  any  form  of  authorized 
restraint  upon  equality,  liberty,  and  common  justice,  is,  of  all 
forms  of  government,  in  principle  and  opportunity,  the  most 
favorable  for  bringing  its  best  citizenship  into  its  places  of 
public  duty,  and  that  our  failure,  in  that  regard,  is  largely  to 
be  explained  by  the  fact  that  no  sense  of  peril — until  within  a 
few  years — has  prevented  our  being  bhnded  by  our  marvellous 
growth  and  prosperity,  or  disturbed  our  neglect  of  growing 
abuses  in  the  administration  ;  so  that  the  subject,  not  in  any 
other  way  much  pressed  upon  public  attention,  has  never  yet 
taken  its  appropriate  place  in  the  reflections  of  the  citizen  or 
the  action  of  the  government.  When,  at  no  remote  day,  such 
shall  be  the  case,  it  need  not,  I  think,  be  doubted  that  the 
honor  and  the  safety  of  the  people  will  alike  be  seen  to  demand, 
or  that  their  unmistakable  voice  will  require — that,  in  the 
advancing  stages  of  civilization,  the  official  places  in  the 
republic  shall  be  filled,  and  its  honor,  dignity,  and  rights 
shall  be  upheld,  at  home  and  abroad,  by  men  in  experience, 
education,  and  moral  worth,  not  inferior  to  those  who  may  hold 
corresponding  places  in  the  foremost  monarchy  in  the  world. 

»  See  ante,  pp.  19G-197,  and  202. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

A   SUMMARY  AND  THE    SIGNIFICANCE  OF   THE  EEFOEM  MOVEMENT. 

Tlie  original  spoils  system. — The  first  appearance  of  partisan  methods. 
— The  origin  of  parties. — The  beginning  of  the  partisan  system. — 
Source  of  parliamentary  patronage. — A  partisan  spoils  system  devel- 
oped.— Checks  upon  that  system  by  legislation  and  public  opinion. — The 
system  of  George  III.  —  Reforms  after  the  American  Revolution.  —  A 
higher  and  bolder  public  opinion. — When  examination  first  introduced. 
— Limited  competition. — Fear  of  revolution. — Civil  Service  commission 
created  in  1853. — Only  limited  competition  required. — Unpopularity  and 
decay  of  parliamentary  patronage. — The  leaders  of  both  parties  find  the 
partisan  system  a  failure. — Open  competition  in  India. — Open  competi- 
tion made  general  in  1870. — The  significance  of  Civil  Service  reform. — It  is 
not  a  mere  method  or  process. — It  involves  great  principles,  and  the 
morality  and  the  stability  of  government. — Tbg  general  results  reached 
in  Great  Britain. 

The  decisive  influences,  and  the  more  important  measures, 
in  civil  administration  during  the  long  course  of  history  which 
we  have  followed,  can  now  be  presented  within  narrow  limits. 

I.  In  the  feudal  times,  upon  which  we  first  entered,  gov- 
ernment represented  neither  the  wishes  nor  interests  of  the 
people,  nor  were  its  objects  the  protection  of  common  rights 
or  the  promotion  of  common  justice.  A  hereditary  king, 
the  source  of  all  office,  the  nobility,  forever  in  ofiice,  and  their 
subordinates,  true  to  the  feudal  spirit,  recognized  neither  equal- 
ity nor  liberty  nor  responsibility,  but  claimed  a  divine  right  to 
rule  and  insisted  on  an  absolute  duty  of  the  people  to  obey. 
The  modern  rule  of  duty,  that  laws  should  be  framed  and  ex- 
ecuted in  the  common  interests  and  on  the  basis  of  the  equal 
rights  of  the  people,  and  the  theory  that  the  power  to  a^jpoint 
and  remove  public  officers  is  one  of  trust  and  strict  responsi- 
bility, to  be  exercised  only  for  the  general  welfare,  were  not 
recognized,  and  they  were  repugnant  alike  to  the  theory 
of  the  government  and  the  spirit  of  the  age.     Power  was  the 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  343 

only  limit  of  official  action,  and  fear  the  only  reliance  of  tlie 
government.  The  mass  of  the  people  were  in  gross  ignorance, 
and  many  of  them  were  in-  slavery.  The  authority  to  make 
laws  and  to  appoint  and  remove  officers,  like  the  power  to  cofi- 
fer  titles,  to  give  pensions,  to  grant  pardons,  to  extort  taxes,  to 
enforce  service  in  the  army,  to  excuse  compliance  with  statutes 
and  judgments,  were  alike  used  to  advance  the  interests  of  the 
king,  the  officers,  and  the  privileged  classes,  who  made  up  the 
one  party  forever  in  power.  In  no  other  sense  was  there  any 
party  ;  nor  had  the  people  the  necessary  intelligence  or  liberty 
to  form  a  party,  in  the  modern  sense,  until  centuries  later. 
A  spoils  system  of  office  was  wrought  into  the  very  struc- 
ture of  government  and  society.  Nearly  all  kinds  of  official 
abuses  kno"WTi  in  modem  times — from  the  open  sale  of  offices 
by  the  head  of  a  nation  do^vIl  to  petty  pillage  by  a  baggage- 
searcher  at  the  docks,  from  bribery  on  the  highest  seats  of 
justice  to  extortion  by  constables  and  robbery  by  collectors — 
were  developed  in  all  their  manifold  fonns.  They  were  not 
confined  to  politics,  but  extended  to  the  church,  to  the  army,  and 
to  the  conditions  of  privilege  and  precedence  in  social  life.  If 
the  salaries  of  petty  officers  were  not  pillaged  by  great  officials 
under  the  pretence  of  party  assessments,  it  was  because  there 
was  no  party  but  the  membei'S  of  the  privileged  class,  some  of 
whom  had  sold  the  offices  and  got  a  larger  price  by  reason  of 
their  being  delivered  free  of  taxation  ;  if  there  was  no  invasion 
of  the  appointing  power  by  members  of  Parliament,  and  al- 
most no  bribery  at  their  election,  it  was  because  that  body  had 
but  little  power  and  its  members  were  as  dependent  upon  the 
king  and  the  great  lords  as  clerks  now  are  upon  members  of 
Congress.  We  need  only  to  read  the  history  of  these  times, 
to  expose  the  unpatriotic  slanders  by  which  modern  partisans 
and  demagogues  have  sought  their  own  justification,  in  repre- 
senting that  the  abuses  they  practise  are  the  peculiar  and  in- 
evitable drawbacks  of  repubhcan  institutions.  Our  spoils  sys- 
tem is  only  that  portion  of  these  old,  royal  abuses  which  we 
have  foisted  upon  our  republican  institutions. 

II.  A  despotic  spoils  system  was  an  essential  part  of  the  power 
of  the  crown  and  of  the  bulwarks  of  the  nobility  and  the  church  ; 
and  tliere  was   neither  the  sense   of  duty,    the   justice,    the 


344  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAm. 

liberty,  nor  the  intelligence,  that  made  even  its  fit  discussion 
possible  ;  nor  could  there  be  until  centuries  of  a  rising  civil- 
ization had  not  only  raised  the  -conscience,  the  education, 
and  the  freedom  of  the  people,  but  modified  the  very  structure 
of  government  and  society.  If,  as  in  the  age  of  Wycldiffe, 
a  great  uprising  of  the  manhood  and  the  moral  sense  of 
the  nation  gave  birth  to  a  civil-service  reform  statute,  as 
much  in  advance  of  the  age  as  any  thing  he  said  or  did,  it 
was  yet  true  that,  in  religion  and  politics  alike,  such  glimpses 
of  better  things  were  but  lights  on  the  dark  way  of  progress, 
and  that  real  reform  was  far  in  the  future.  As  it  had  been 
under  the  Plantagenets,  so,  substantially,  it  continued  under 
the  Tudoi*s  and  the  Stuarts,  until  the  time  of  Cromwell.  There 
was  no  public  opinion  sufficiently  enlightened  to  grasp  the 
idea  that  there  is  no  more  right  to  use  the  appointing  power 
than  there  is  to  use  the  pubhc  money  for  selfish  and  corrupt 
purposes — if  indeed  there  could  be  said  to  be  any  that  com- 
prehended the  idea  of  oflBcial  responsibility  to  the  people  in  any 
sense.  It  would  have  required  a  bold  man,  ready  to  peril  his 
life,  to  assert  such  principles  before  the  king.  To  question  tJie 
selfish  use  of  the  appointing  power — which  now  only  subjects  a 
reformer  to  the  ostracism  of  a  party,  was  then  treason  against  a 
king,  if  not  rebellion  against  the  divine  order  in  the  state. 
Until  near  the  time  of  Cromwell,  the  idea  of  true  political 
reform  as  a  right  or  a  duty,  in  the  sense  of  modem  times, 
hardly  existed  in  England.  There  had,  indeed,  begun  to  be  a 
public  opinion  that,  in  a  general  way,  claimed  rights  and  re- 
sponsibility in  connection  with  government,  and  there  was 
some  co-operation  to  secure  them  ;  but  public  thought  rested 
on  principles  without  reaching  the  definite  conception  of 
methods  in  administration — results  only  to  be  reached  in  the 
next  century.  Parliament  still  remained  too  feeble  to  usurp 
any  part  of  the  appointing  power,  and  the  clerks  in  the  de- 
partnients  were  not  public  servants  at  all,  but  were  the  mere 
hirelings  of  the  great  officers  at  their  head. 

III.  In  the  time  of  Cromwell,  there  were  combinations  in 
the  nature  of  parties,  and  that  which  supported  him  had  a 
well-defined  policy,  and  principles — as  much  religious  as  po- 
litical— which  in  many  ways  raised  the  administration  above 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT   BRITAIN.  345 

the  selfish  interests  of  persons  and  classes.  He  recognized  a 
sort  of  responsibility  to  his  party  for  the  use  of  the  appointing 
power,  and  in  that  regard  made  the  first  great  advance  toward 
administering  the  government  in  the  interest  of  common  jus- 
tice. At  this  period,  we  find  the  character  of  the  administra- 
tion beginning  to  attract  the  attention  of  statesmen  ;  and 
Marvel,  EHot,  and  Yane  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  of  the 
illustrious  patriots  who  began  to  comprehend  the  great  work 
of  administrative  reform  ;  and  the  republican,  Algernon  Sid- 
ney, declared  the  new  doctrine,  ' '  that  magistrates  are  set  up 
for  the  good  of  the  nation,  not  nations  for  the  honor  or  glory 
of  magistrates." 

IV.  Cromwell  had  done  nothing  toward  the  establishment 
of  a  better  method  than  mere  official  favor  for  making 
selections  for  the  public  service,  if  indeed  the  times  were 
not  too  violent  and  ignorant  for  a  reform  based  on  character 
and  justice.  Under  Charles  II.,  therefore,  the  old  spoils 
system  was  restored  with  the  cro\vn  ;  and  in  the  form  of  pen- 
sions, titles,  and  bribes  he  increased  all  the  former  elements  of 
corruption  in  ways  which  his  profligacy  and  recklessness  sug- 
gested. The  appointing  power  was  as  much  an  article  of 
merchandise  as  the  crops  on  the  royal  estates.  Parliamentary 
corruption  increased  with  the  power  of  Parliament,  and  nearly 
every  officer  was  open  to  bribes,  from  the  king,  who  set  the 
example  to  the  keeper  of  the  dog-kennels,  who  followed  it. 
Under  James  II.  it  was  not  better,  but  worse.  Rehgious  as 
much  as  political  opinions  continued  to  be  tests  for  office  in 
the  army  and  in  civil  life,  as  well  as  in  the  church.  Districts 
were  gerrymandered,  Parliament  was  packed  with  placemen, 
members  followed  the  precedent  of  the  king  in  accepting 
bribes  and  in  bribing  others.  Proscription  extended  to  the 
judiciary,  and  Jeffreys  expressed  the  savage  spirit  it  breathed. 
Officers  w^ere  removed  by  reason  of  their  opinions,  as  nitlilessly 
as  they  have  ever  been  by  any  republican  president,  governor, 
or  mayor  in  later  times.  Official  hfe  became  a  source  of  cor- 
ruption, which  poisoned  and  debased  every  thing  in  connection 
with  government,  and  helped  to  arouse  tbe  wrath  of  the  people, 
which  drove  James  from  the  country.  But  outside  of  official 
life,  and  despite  the  demoralizing  influence  of  politics,  a  better 


346  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIX. 

public  opinion,  a  larger  and  bolder  sense  of  right  and  duty,  were 
growing  among  the  people,  and  taking  more  and  more  notice 
of  public  administration. 

V.  WiUiam  III,  was  the  first  English  king  who  brought  a 
reforming  spirit  to  the  throne,  and  the  fii^t  who  appreciated 
the  importance  of  good  administration  ;  and  he  soon  dis- 
covered that  without  reforms  he  could  not  carry  forward 
his  great  enterprises,  if  indeed  he  could  retain  the  throne. 
He  did  little  for  better  methods,  but  much  for  a  better 
spirit,  and  more  efficiency  and  responsibility.  He  became 
his  own  Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  day  after  day 
he  personally  investigated  abuses  in  the  other  departments. 
Laws  were  passed  for  the  protection  of  the  freedom  of  elec- 
tions, judges  were  made  secure  in  their  offices  during  good 
behavior,  placemen  were  excluded  from  seats  in  Parliament. 
But  a  desperate  spirit  of  faction  prevailed.  The  nation  was 
unaccustomed  to  the  responsibilities  of  freedom  and  without 
experience  in  the  management  of  j^f^i'ties.  The  power  of 
Parliament  had  greatly  increased,  but  with  more  power  had 
come  more  bribery  and  more  factious  activity.  The  king 
created  a  select  cabinet  of  advisers,  the  beginning  of  the 
present  British  Cabinet,  and  the  model  on  which  that  of 
the  United  States  is  closely  framed.  The  members  were 
all  taken  from  the  dominant  party  in  Parliament,  and 
they  were  to  go  out  (unless  the  Parliament  should  be  pro- 
rogued) whenever,  on  any  important  measure,  they  should 
fail  of  carrying  a  majority  in  that  body.  This  system  gave 
to  the  Parliamentary  majority  the  great  prize  of  guiding  the 
administration  and  of  controlling  all  appointments  ;  and  very 
soon  and  very  naturally  drew  its  members  and  their  constitu- 
ents into  two  great  parties.  Here  was  the  origin  of  parties 
and  of  party  government,  as  understpod  in  British  history. 
The  majority  could  before  make  all  laws  ;  but  now,  through 
the  cabinet,  it  could  also  control  all  national  pohcy,  name  all 
officei-s,  direct  all  subordinate  officials  in  the  line  of  their 
duty.  It  was  the  greatest  prize  ever  offered  to  the  victors  in 
a  party  contest.  Party  government,  thus  introduced  under 
William  III.,  has  continued,  with  no  fundamental  change,  to 
this  day.     It  made  no  provision  as  to  the  mode  of  the  appoint- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  347 

ment  or  removal  of  subordinate  oflEicials  ;  and  it  was  quite 
consistent  with  its  theory  tliat  their  selection  should  be  based 
on  their  personal  qualifications,  irrespective  of  political  opin- 
ions. In  that  particular,  the  condition  was  the  same  as  it  is 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  So  great  a  regard 
for  character  and  so  non-partisan  a  spirit  were,  however,  too 
much  for  the  political  virtue  and  general  intelligence  of  the 
times  of  William  III.  Despite  the  failure  of  party  gov- 
ernment to  rise  above  a  partisan,  spoils  system,  and  its  con- 
tinued inability  to  make  reforms  that  kept  administration  up 
to  the  level  of  the  rising  plane  of  public  intelligence  and  mo- 
rality, its  introduction  was  in  itself  no  small  improvement. 
To  a  great  extent,  it  took  administration  out  of  the  secret  in- 
trigues of  the  court,  and  opened  it  to  the  members  of  a  party 
or  at  least  to  its  leaders.  If  it  did  not  give  the  ofiices  to  the  peo- 
ple, it  in  principle  gave  them  to  such  of  the  people  as  belonged 
to  the  ruling  party — though  in  practice  it  only  gave  them  to 
official  favorites  and  partisan  manipulators.  The  leaders  of 
the  dominant  party  insisted  on  proscription,  and  made  opinions 
the  test  of  nominations.  Members  of  Parhament  demanded 
patronage,  and  very  soon  began  their  long-continued  encroach- 
ment on  the  appointing  power  of  the  executive.  They  de- 
manded places  as  a  condition  of  helping  fellow-members  to 
seats  in  the  cabinet ;  and  here  was  one  great  source  of  their 
control  of  appointments.  There  were  not  at  this  time  (nor  has 
there  since  been,  except  for  very  brief  periods)  any  general 
practice  of  removals  without  cause  ;  but  the  dominant  party 
continued  to  grasp  larger  and  larger  patronage,  and  more  and 
more,  it  came  under  the  control  of  members  of  Parliament. 
And  party  politics  strongly  tended  to  venaHty.  Here  we 
have  the  introduction  of  the  partisan  system  of  appointments 
— of  the  practice  of  parties  looking  to  their  patronage,  rather 
than  to  their  principles  and  their  good  administration,  for  the 
sources  of  their  strength  among  the  people.  This  usurpation 
of  the  appointing  power  by  members  of  Parliament  and  the 
introduction  of  a  partisan  system  of  appointments,  at  the  very 
beginning  of  party  government,  made  indispensable  that  long 
contest,  in  which  members  were  finally  compelled  to  surrender 
their  spoils. 


348  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN". 

YI.  From  Anne  to  George  III.  was  the  period  of  tlie  first 
great  trial  of  party  government.  It  did  not  fail,  nor  has  it 
since  failed,  within  its  true  sphere.  But  having  descended 
to  partisan  methods,  it  proved  that  by  such  methods  public 
administration  cannot  be  raised,  or  the  just  demands  of  an 
intelligent  nation  be  satisfied.  The  partisan  system  of  ap- 
pointments and  promotions  aggravated  the  evils  of  Parlia- 
mentary patronage,  made  administration  costly  and  feeble, 
spread  coiTuption  from  the  department  to  cities,  boroughs, 
and  elections,  while  it  disgusted  the  better  class  of  citizens, 
alarmed  statesmen,  and  exasperated  and  debased  all  politi- 
cal contests.  At  the  same  time  that  every  thing  within  the 
domain  of  administration  and  politics  was  becoming  more 
and  more  demoralized,  until  the  lowest  depths  of  corruption 
were  reached  under  Walpole,  Newcastle,  and  Pelham — while 
statesmanship  tended  to  sink  into  the  mere  management  and 
manipulation  of  parties  and  elections,  and  those  at  the  head  of 
public  affairs  became  the  leaders  of  a  sernle  class  seeking 
places,  pensions,  and  titles — a  higher  and  bolder  public 
opinion  was  being  developed  outside  political  circles,  which 
demanded  more  purity  and  patriotism  in  politics,  and  more 
zeal  and  spirituality  in  religion — an  opinion  which  found  no- 
ble utterance  by  Chatham  and  Burke  in  Parliament  and  by 
Wesley  and  Whitefield  in  the  pulpit.  Political  writers  became 
more  bold,  and  the  reforming  spirit  found  a  more  enlightened 
and  vigorous  expression.  Still  reformers  were  ridiculed  as 
doctrinaires  and  sentimentalists, — were  denounced  as  canting 
hy]30crites,  seeking  office, — were  branded  as  enemies  of  the 
party  who  threatened  its  safety.  Nevertheless  the  reforming 
spirit  steadily  gained  strength,  and  more  and  more  the  inherent 
evils  of  Parliamentary  patronage  and  the  partisan  system 
were  demonstrated.  Even  in  Queen  Anne's  time,  the  inter- 
ference of  oflicials  with  the  freedom  of  elections  became  intol- 
erable ;  and  in  that  ninth  year  of  her  reign  those  in  the  postal 
service  were  by  statute  prohibited  using  their  infiuence  to  affect 
the  vote  of  any  elector.  This  statute  is,  I  think,  the  first  of 
that  series  of  enactments  which  enforce  a  more  just  and  whole- 
some restraint  than  we  have  yet  imposed  on  official  interfer- 
ence with  the  freedom  of  elections. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  349 

Still  members  of  Parliament  insisted  on  their  patronage  and 
used  it  basely.  Inexorable  partisan  tests  in  the  departments 
were  reinforced  by  proscriptiv^e  appointments  and  promo- 
tions in  the  church,  by  corrupt  pensions,  by  titles  that  re- 
warded venality,  by  promotions  that  insulted  merit,  by  a  cor- 
rupt borough-system,  and  by  fearful  bribery  at  the  elections. 
The  abuse  of  partisan  removals  was  not  as  great  as  it  has  been 
with  us,  though  the  Tories  attempted  to  introduce  universal 
proscription, 

YII.  George  III.  added  new  elements  of  debasement  to 
the  evils  of  the  partisan  system  which  he  inherited.  He  arbi- 
trarily interfered  with  the  details  of  administration  and  rivalled 
members  of  Parliament  in  bribery  and  coercion.  His  policy, 
especially,  during  the  administration  of  Lord  Bute,'  was  as 
prescriptive  as  that  of  our  most  partisan  Presidents,  and 
immeasurably  more  corrupt.  Pensions,  titles,  decorations, 
court  favore,  social  influence,  espionage,  open  bribes  at  elec- 
tions, bribes  of  members,  threats,  were  used  to  carry  the 
projects  of  the  king  and  to  punish  his  enemies.  Members  of 
Parliament,  high  officials  and  party  leaders,  generally,  were  Ht- 
tle  above  the  morality  of  the  court.  The  king  tried  to  rule 
through  a  party  based  on  patronage,  official  influence,  and  cor- 
ruption ;  and  he  failed  as  sadly  as  any  party  has  ever  failed  in 
the  use  of  the  same  means.  Lord  Bute  ignominiously  surren- 
dered on  the  failure  of  that  system.  The  higher  sentiments 
and  the  nobler  minds  of  the  nation  exhibited  a  growing  power. 
But  the  war  with  America — to  the  support  of  which  the  king 
brought  all  the  corrupt  resources  of  the  spoils  system,  and 
which  that  system  unquestionably  protracted— silenced  for  a 
time  the  voice  of  reform.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  an 
administration  distinctly  pledged  to  reform  came,  for  the  first 
time  in  English  history,  into  the  possession  of  the  govern- 
ment.' 

Independence  for  America,  administrative  reform,  freedom 
of  elections,  exclusion  of  placemen  from  Parliament — these 
were  its  pledges,  to  vvhich  it  was  faithful.  The  triumph  of  the 
spirit  of  Burke  and  Chatham — victory  for  those  who  had  stood 

The  first  Rockingham  Ministry  was  certainly  friendly  to  reform. 

23 


350  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN    GREAT   BRITAIN. 

for  America  and  for  reform — gave  significance  to  tlie  change 
of  ministry.  If  there  was  delay  and  occasional  reaction,  the 
higher  sentiments,  whose  victory  these  events  record,  never 
again  surrendered  to  patronage  or  partisanship.  TVe  very 
soon  come  npon  the  time  when  British  legislation,  in  a  long 
series  of  statutes  against  bribery  and  office  brokerage,  passed 
during  the  reign  of  George  Til.  and  since  perfected,  was  made 
far  more  elfective  against  the  prostitution  of  the  appointing 
power  and  the  abuse  of  ofticial  authority  generally,  than  our 
laws  have  ever  been.  If  there  was  not  enough  public  virtue 
or  wisdom  to  remove  the  causes  which  induced  subordinate 
ofiicials  to  interfere  with  elections,  there  was  at  least  a  patriotic 
public  opinion  bold  enough,  in  the  last  half  of  the  reign  of 
George  III.  to  crush  out  that  evil  by  disfranchising  those 
officers  ;  a  disability  that  continued  until  1868,  when  the  merit 
system  had  removed  the  cause  of  the  gi'eat  evil  at  which  dis- 
franchisement had  been  aimed.  And  before  his  reign  came 
to  an  end,  the  system  of  superannuation  allowances,  ever  since 
enforced,  had  been  well  developed,  and  there  were  several 
other  laws  intended  to  advance  the  self-respect  and  social  po- 
sition of  those  in  the  public  service. 

These  statutes,  by  making  official  prostitution  more  peril- 
ous, by  holding  up  a  higher  standard  of  public  duty  before 
the  people,  by  encouraging  the  criticism  of  the  better  public 
opinion,  have  largely  contributed  to  the  purification  of  politi- 
cal life  and  to  the  upbuilding  of  that  more  exacting  popular 
demand  which  has  imposed  a  wholesome  sense  of  responsibility 
upon  British  officers  of  every  grade  and  in  every  part  of  the 
empire. 

YIII.  Before  1820,  when  George  IV.  became  king,  the 
better  public  sentiment  had  nearly  driven  corruption  out  of  the 
partisan  system,  while  the  system  remained  ;  but  its  inherent 
viciousness  had  only  become  the  more  conspicuous  in  the 
light  of  a  higher  civilization.  Bribery  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment was  at  an  end,  and  removals  for  mere  political  reasons 
were  very  rarely  made.  But  members  of  Parliament  were  by 
their  patronage  disarmed  for  some  of  the  higher  duties  of 
legislation  ;  they  forced  incompetent  favorites  into  the  ser- 
vice ;  the  departments  were  crowded  with  supernumeraries  ; 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX  GREAT   BRITAIN.  351 

elections  were  debased,  and  tlie  whole  atmosphere  of  politics 
was  poisoned  by  the  evils  of  patronage  and  favoritism.  These 
evils  had  become  known  to  tlie  more  intelligent  part  of  the 
people,  and  there  was  a  far  more  discriminating  condemnation 
of  parliamentary  interference  with  appointments  than  ever 
before  ;  but  for  a  time  the  great  reform  measure  of  1832 
absorbed  public  attention. 

As  early  as  1834,  however,  pass  examinations  for  admission 
to  the  service  were  begun  in  a  small  way,  and  before  1850 
they  had  been  greatly  extended.  In  1854  they  were  adopted 
in  the  United  States.  But  in  their  very  nature,  they  were 
inadequate,  and  more  efficient  examinations  were  called  for. 
Patronage  in  all  its  forms,  by  reason  of  the  good  cliects  of 
examinations,  encountered  more  and  more  powerful  oppo- 
sition. Statesmen  clearly  perceived,  that  a  partisan  system 
is  as  unnecessary  to  the  vigorous  life  of  a  party  as  it  is 
disastrous  to  the  higher  interest  of  a  nation.  Under  the 
influence  of  such  convictions,  patronage  and  proscription 
were  put  under  more  effective  limitations,  and  examinations 
were  extended  and  made  more  efficient  by  limited  competi- 
tion in  some  of  the  offices.  The  great  party  leaders  on  both 
sides  comprehended  that  neither  parliamentary  patronage 
nor  the  partisan  system  itself  could  long  survive.  Even  as 
early  as  1820,  the  patronage  of  promotion  in  the  customs  ser- 
vice had  been  surrendered  by  the  head  of  the  treasury  in  favor 
of  proniotions  for  merit  ;  and  the  results  not  a  little  aided 
the  cause  of  reform  by  increasing  the  efficiency  of  that  branch 
of  the  service.  To  the  other  influences,  which  led  to  the 
radical  movement  of  1853,  must  be  added  the  fact  that  pass 
examinations — inherently  defective  as  they  are — everywhere, 
in  a  perceptible  measure,  both  limited  the  abuses  of  parlia- 
mentary patronage  and  brought  better  men  into  the  pubhc 
service.  It  was  no  longer  possible  for  politicians  to  prevent 
the  question  of  better  administrative  methods  coming  into 
the  foreground  as  a  great  measure  of  executive  policy  ;  and 
it  became  distinctly  such  before  1853.  It  was  not,  in  form, 
ever  a  party  issue  ;  for,  in  its  nature,  it  divided  not  party 
from  party,  biit  what  was  liigher  from  what  was  lower  in  each 
party  ;  and  not  even  the  more  partisan  managers  of  either  party 


352  CIVIL   SEEVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

thought  it  safe — any  more  than  they  have  in  the  United 
States  in  later  years — to  avow  hostihty  to  the  duty  or  prin- 
ciple of  reform,  however  much  they  might  sneer  and  secretly 
oppose. 

IX.  This  brings  us  to  the  radical  reform  measures  of  1853. 
In  large  part  by  reason  of  the  statutes  I  have  referred  to, 
the  general  character  of  official  life  had  so  risen,  between  1780 
and  1853,  that,  at  the  latter  date,  it  was,  I  think,  decidedly  less 
partisan  and  less  venal  in  Great  Britain  than  in  the  United 
States  ;  though  patronage  in  the  hands  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment— the  main  source  of  the  abuses  in  the  civil  service — was 
still  as  arbitrary  and  pernicious  as  it  has  at  any  time  been  in 
the  hands  of  members  of  Congress.  The  moral  planes  of 
official  life  in  the  two  countries — the  one  ascending  and  the 
other  descending — had  crossed  each  other  in  the  period  be- 
tween those  dates.  The  nearest  correspondence  between  the 
use  of  the  appointing  power  by  an  English  king  and  an  Amer- 
ican president  was  the  practice  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign 
of  George  III.  and  that  which  began  under  President  Jackson  ; 
though  George  III.  added  to  merciless  partisanship,  pecuniary 
bribery,  an  offence  of  which  President  Jackson  was  never 
guilty. 

If  the  character  of  administration  had,  in  a  degree,  risen 
with  the  intelligence  and  moral  tone  of  society  since  party 
government  began,  it  had  neither  risen  as  rapidly  as  the 
demand  for  reform,  nor  reached  the  efficiency  and  purity 
which  the  statesmen  of  both  parties  felt  that  the  exigency  of 
the  empire  demanded.  They  saw  that  the  waning  partisan 
system  was  capable  of  nothing  better  than  what  it  had  given, 
that  the  reform  sentiment  was  steadily  gaining  strength,  that 
parliamentary  patronage  must  from  its  very  nature  be  fruitful 
of  evil  continually,  and  was  incapable  of  defense  on  any  sound 
principles.'  And  they  felt  that  the  revolutionary  tendencies  in 
England  and  throughout  Europe,  since  1830,  and  especially 
since  1848,  were  a  warning  not  only  against  any  elements  of 
feebleness,  but    against    every  abuse  that  might  impair  the 

'  "  Some  years  have  now  elapsed  since  Lord  Althorp  declared  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  the  time  for  a  system  of  government  by  patronage 
was  gone  by."— Speech  of  Earl  Granville  in  House  of  Lords,  1854. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  353 

patriotism  of  the  people.  Though  we  have  high  authority  for 
saying  that  on  a  secret  vote  a  reform  pohcy  would  have  been 
suppressed  by  overwhelming  numbers,  the  great  party  leaders 
dared  not  longer  oppose  it  on  principle.  ' '  If  the  clubs  had 
been  polled,  there  would  have  been  ninety-nine  out  of  a 
hundred  against  us."  * 

The  strength  of  the  minority  was  not  in  numbers,  but  in  the 
influence  of  high  character  and  capacity,  and  of  deep,  moral 
earnestness — a  force  in  pubhc  affairs  which  politicians  are  very 
apt  to  underestimate.  It  was  then,  as  it  had  been  long  before, 
and  has  continually  since  been,  a  part  of  the  conviction  of  all 
English  statesmen  that  the  good  administration  of  the  laws 
is  a  matter  of  serious  concern,  to  which  they  ought  to  give 
their  best  efforts.  "  Every  eminent  statesman  has  since "  shown 
that  the  true  policy  of  a  government  was  in  appealing  to 
the  good  sense  and  intelligence  of  the  large  classes  of  the 
community."  Such  was  the  condition,  in  1853,  when  the 
government  ordered  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  and  Sir  Staf- 
ford Northcote  to  make  their  celebrated  investigation  and 
report.  It  was  not  a  movement  by  members  of  Parliament 
toward  the  surrender  of  their  usurped  patronage,  nor  did  that 
body,  at  first,  co-operate  beyond  voting  money  to  pay  ex- 
penses ;  but  it  was  an  exercise  of  the  long-dormant  authority 
of  the  executive,  in  its  own  sphere  of  duty,  to  see  that  the 
laws  are  faithfully  executed — sustained  by  the  better  public 
opinion.  Members  of  Parliament,  with  few  exceptions — each 
grasjjing  firmly  his  little  parcel — persistently  claimed  as  a  right 
that  portion  of  the  appointing  power  which  they  had  originally 
gained  as  a  usurpation  ;  nor  can  they  ever  be  credited  with 
surrendering  it — until  a  frowning  public  opinion  enforced  that 
duty.' 

X.  The  investigation  made  by  those  gentlemen  showed  that 
pass  examinations  had  been  useful ;  that  limited  competition 
between  those  nominated  by  members  of  Parliament  and  the 
Treasury — though  applied  only  within  very  narrow  limits — 

'  Evid.  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  C.  S.  Inquiry,  1873,  vol.  ii.,  p.  102. 
'  The  date  referred  to  is  1854,  and  this  language  is  from  Earl  Granville's 
speech  cited  in  the  last  note. 
•  See  Appendix  A,  Letter  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan. 


354  CIVIL   SERVICE    IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

had  been  still  more  useful.  It  also  develoj)ed  good  reasons  for 
believing  that  open  competition,  under  which  any  one  apply- 
ing could  be  examined  without  permission  of  any  official, 
would  be  far  more  salutary  ;  and  it  hardly  need  be  added  that 
it  would  exclude  the  evil  of  parliamentary  patronage.  Open 
competition  was  therefore  recommended  ;  and  also  a  general 
Civil  Service  Commission  for  supervising  and  giving  harmony 
to  examinations  throughout  all  the  departments  and  offices. 
Open  competition  was  the  application  of  a  new  and  higher 
standard  in  official  life  ;  for,  it  was  a  proclamation  that  worth 
and  capacity  have  higher  claims  upon  office  than  official  favor 
or  partisan  services.  Partisans  and  official  monopolists  were 
naturally  enough  alarmed,  and  became  hostile.  Denunciation, 
sarcasm,  ridicule,  gross  exaggerations  of  the  probable  expenses 
and  of  the  difficulties  in  enforcing  the  new  system,  bold  pro- 
phecies of  its  futility,  and  of  its  pretended  centralizing  tend- 
encies, were  urged  with  a  skill  and  persistency  which  were  not 
surj)assed  when  a  similar  measure  of  reform  was  initiated  in 
the  United  States.  But  Lord  Palmerston — remarkable  alike 
for  courage  and  practical  experience — and  his  cabinet  sup- 
ported the  report  and  had  the  commission  promptly  appointed. 
It  was  thought  prudent,  while  allowing  open  competition,  to 
only  require  limited  competition,  as  a  first  experiment — which 
did  not  prevent  a  monopoly  of  nominations  by  members  of 
Parliament — lest  a  too  sudden  change  from  the  long-prevail- 
ing system  should  arouse  a  dangerous  opposition.  Open  com- 
petition was  about  the  same  time  applied  to  the  administration 
of  British  India,  under  the  immediate  supervision  of  Mr.  Ma- 
caulay.  The  practical  effect,  in  both  countries,  was  to  exclude 
the  worst  nominees,  to  give  places  to  the  best  men  nomi- 
nated, to  improve  the  moral  tone  and  the  capacity  of  the  pub- 
lic service,  to  speedily  make  parliamentary  patronage  ridicu- 
lous and  odious,  by  publicly  exposing  and  rejecting  the  class 
of  incompetent  favorites  and  disreputable  henchmen  which 
members  had  been,  for  more  than  a  centiiry,  in  the  habit  of 
foisting  upon  the  public  treasury  in  the  interest  of  their  purses 
and  their  elections.  It  was  soon  plainly  seen  that  open  compe- 
tition, which  would  alike  promote  common  justice  and  general 
education,  was   all  that  was  needed  to  exterminate  vicious 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  355 

patronage,  to  destroy  the  old  ofticial  monopoly,  and  to  give 
to  the  intelligence  and  manhood  of  the  nation  free  access  to 
present  their  paramomit  claims  upon  places  under  the  gov- 
ernment. Public  opinion  rapidly  grew  stronger  for  the 
reform.  Parliament,  -which  in  1855  had  condemned  the 
new  merit  system  (as  our  Congress  condemned  it  under 
President  Grant),  had  in  1856  grown  wiser,  and  by  a  small 
majority  commended  it  ;  and,  rising  with  public  opinion,  it 
unanimously,  in  1857,  not  only  approved  what  had  been  done, 
but  suggested  that  open  competition  be  established  as  the  sole 
test  for  entering  the  pubHc  service.  Patj'onage  so  rapidly  lost 
its  attractions  and  its  respectability,  and  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  so  early  demonstrated  its  usefulness,  that  in  1859 
Parliament  refused  all  retiring  allowances  to  those  who  should 
get  into  the  service  without  an  examination  before  the  com- 
mifcsion.  The  machinery  of  the  new  system  had  worked  so 
easily,  its  expenses  were  so  small',  and  the  certainty  of  obtaining 
the  best  men  by  examinations  was  so  overwhelmingly  demon- 
strated, that  criticism  was  silenced  and  the  enemies  of  reform 
were  confounded.  The  charge  of  centralization  was  seen  to 
be  absurd  ;  for  the  unconstitutional  share  of  the  appointing 
power  (before  centralized  in  members  of  Parliament)  did  not, 
practically,  revert  to  the  executive,  but  was  in  practice  dis- 
tributed to  the  persons,  of  character  and  capacity  among  the 
people,  who  should  win  their  way  into  the  public  service  by 
an  open  competition,  which  left  the  executive  nothing  like 
the  arbitrary  caprice  of  appointment  which  had  belonged  to 
every  English  king  from  the  origin  of  the  monarchy.  The 
reform,  therefore,  was  as  democratic  and  republican  in  its 
operation,  as  it  was  moral  and  educational  in  its  origin  and 
influence.  The  same  method  which  broke  up  that  centraliza- 
tion of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  members  of  the  legislature 
wliich  impaired  the  counterpoise  of  the  Constitution,  also 
enlarged  the  liberties  of  the  people  by  giving  to  personal  worth 
an  open  way  to  office. 

The  victory  of  the  merit  system  was  thus  complete,  and  the 
disposition  to  oppose  or  argue  was  over,  in  five  yeai*s  from  the 
time  it  was  fii*st  officially  proposed.  The  nation  was  proud  of 
guarantees  for  a  better  official  life  ;  the  cause  of  education  and 


356  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

common  justice  was  advanced  ;  members  of  Parliament  were 
glad  to  be  relieved  of  the  degrading  and  exasperating  solicita- 
tion for  office  ;  elections  began  to  turn  more  on  character  and 
cajDacity,  and  not  so  much  on  hopes  of  patronage  and  salaries  ; 
parties  were  found  to  be  not  less  vigorous  and  wholesome 
when  the  main  issues  were  those  of  policy  and  principles 
without  embroilment  with  questions  about  all  sorts  of  offices 
and  places.  The  time  had  come  when  hoj)es  of  personal  gain, 
adroit  management,  and  official  manipulation  were  seen  to  be 
forces  in  politics  far  inferior  to  honest  and  open  appeals  to  the 
judgment,  honor,  and  patriotism  of  the  j)eople.  Those  seek- 
ing office  turned  for  support  from  the  place-brokers  and 
partisan  speculators  of  politics,  whose  business  was  broken  up, 
to  the  independent  and  honest  citizenship  of  the  country, 
whose  influence  was  increased. 

X.  In  the  presence  of  such  effects,  it  was  only  natural  that 
the  series  of  thorough  investigations,  already  explained, 
should  be  made  into  all  the  old  abuses  of  the  departments — 
that  open  competition,  free  to  every  British  subject,  with  no 
possibility  of  limitation  or  obstruction  by  any  member  or  any 
executive  officer,  should  be  introduced  in  1870,  and  since  con- 
tinued with  a  satisfaction  that  has  never  diminished  ;  that 
popular  education  should  receive  a  marked  impetus  ;  that 
the  general  efficiency  of  the  administration  and  the  character 
and  social  standing  of  those  who  execute  the  laws  should 
be  elevated  with  the  standard  for  admission  to  the  public 
service.  Open  competition,  which  had,  much  longer  and 
in  a  more  extensive  way,  been  on  trial  in  India,  had  given 
results  not  less  salutary  ;  and  these  examples  caused  the  new 
system  to  be  extended  to  the  army  and  navy,  to  the  jurisdic- 
tions of  the  royal  governors,  to  Australia,  Tasmania,  and,  to 
some  extent,  to  Canada  ;  so  that,  in  every  quarter  of  the  world 
where  the  English  language  is  spoken  (except  in  the  United 
States)  the  wholesome  influence  of  the  new  system  was  early 
felt,  and  the  foundation  was  laid  for  a  public  service  based  on 
personal  worth  and  capacity.  Thus,  we  see  an  ancient  govern- 
ment, of  imperial  proportions,  with  all  its  dependencies — a 
monarchy  in  fonn  and  historical  development — which  has  been 
generally  supposed  to  And  its  strength  in  royal  and  official 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  357 

favoritism  and  in  selfish  and  class  interests,  going  forward  with 
a  reform,  in  principle  founded  on  equal  rights  and  common 
opportunity  for  sharing  its  honors  and  salaries — a  reform  which 
in  practice  (with  a  few  exceptions)  takes  from  parties  all 
chances  of  trading  in  public  franchises,  surrenders  the  gracious 
privileges  of  the  cro%vn  to  a  stern  rale  of  justice,  deprives  every 
oflBcer  of  the  power  of  granting  favors,  and  holds  officials  to  a 
responsibility  more  democratic  and  republican  in  spirit,  and 
to  a  moral  standard  of  duty  more  severely  exacting  and  sternly 
in  the  common  interests  of  the  people,  than  any  ever  yet 
been  enforced  in  a  republic. 

The  whole  advance — the  result  of  the  efforts  of  patriots 
and  statesmen  for  good  administration  during  six  centuries — 
is  expressed  in  this  simple  fact :  In  the  beginning,  a  man 
was  in  the  public  service  because  a  corrupt  and  arbitrary 
king  wished  him  there  ;  at  the  end,  he  was  in  that  service 
because  a  fair  test  of  his  worth  gave  him  the  place,  as  the  best 
man  to  fill  it. 

But  consider  what  an  immense  advance  in  justice  and  lib- 
erty, in  the  standard  of  official  duty  and  the  rights  of  simple 
manhood,  this  change  illustrates  !  In  the  beginning,  and  for 
centuries,  all  offices,  salaries,  and  places,  all  authority  exerted 
in  ways  innumerable  in  every  grade  of  official  influence,  all  the 
prestige,  profits,  and  spoils  of  carrying  on  the  vast  affairs  of 
government  from  the  hamlet  to  the  throne,  were  the  perqui- 
sites, the  privileges,  the  monopoly,  or  the  spoils  of  kings,  no- 
bles, or  bishops  and  their  favorites  ;  into  a  participation  of  which 
no  man  as  a  man,  or  because  the  ablest  and  best  of  men, 
could  come,  except  upon  conditions  almost  certain  to  be  a 
compromise  of  manhood  or  a  prostitution  of  pubhc  interests. 
But  at  the  end  the  great  principle  has  become  established, 
that  the  personal  character  and  capacity  which  fit  a  man  for 
public  duty  are  in  themselves  tiie  highest  claim  upon  office  / 
and  to  ascertain,  select,  and  appoint  the  men  thus  fitted  for  the 
public  service  are  affinned  to  be  duties  paramount  to  all  royal 
policy,  to  all  aristocratic  interests,  to  all  state  church  ambi- 
tion, to  all  partisan  exigencies  ;  and  thus,  high  exalted  over 
every  other  reason  of  preference  and  every  other  interest, 
stand  the  simple  claims  of  personal  worth,  and  the  interest  and 


358  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

right  of  tlie  people  to  leave  them  regarded  in  making  selec- 
tions for  office.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  the  reform  of  the  civil 
service  in  Great  Britain  has  not  been,  and  that  nowhere 
should  it  be  looked  upon  as  being  a  mere  device  in  procedure, 
a  mere  method  in  public  business,  or  a  mere  collection  of 
rules  in  the  departments  :  but  that  it  involves  all  this  besides 
—a  test  and  expression  of  the  justice  and  moral  tone  of  a 
nation's  politics  ;  a  decision  between  the  relative  claims  of 
worth  and  manhood,  as  weighed  against  official  favoritism, 
and  selfish  interests,  upon  public  confidence  and  respect  ;  a 
theory  of  the  true  sphere  of  parties  and  of  their  best  means  of 
gaining  the  support  of  a  free  and  intelligent  people  ;  a  princi- 
ple of  duty  and  responsibility  in  official  life  ;  the  character 
of  political  leadership — whether  it  should  be  by  statesmen 
making  their  appeal  upon  principles  and  good  administration, 
or  by  manij)ulators  relying  on  patronage  and  management  ; 
the  question  whether  it  be  better  to  encourage  selfish  and  j)ar- 
tisan  activity  by  selecting  officers  on  the  bid  of  cliques  and 
caucuses,  or  to  encourage  education  and  manliness  by  selecting 
them  through  examinations  and  competitions  ;  the  relations  of 
the  legislature  to  the  executive  departments,  and  therefore 
the  construction  of  the  constitution  and  the  counterpoise  and 
stability  of  government  itself.  It  was  because  civil  service 
reform — or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  administrative  reform,  as 
embracing  the  essential  conditions  of  good  administration — 
was  apprehended  in  this  higher  spirit  and  broader  range — as 
being  a  great  and  permanent  question  of  principle  and  duty — as 
presenting  a  perpetual  issue  between  the  higher  and  lower  ele- 
ments— in  politics,  that,  more  than  a  century  ago,  it  began  to 
receive,  and  has  ever  since  received,  the  attention  of  the  fore- 
most of  British  statesmen.  The  first  germs  of  it  are  in  the 
declaration  of  Algernon  Sidney,  that  magistrates  are  created 
for  the  benefit  of  the  state,  and  not  the  state  for  magistrates. 
Eliot  and  Vane  comprehended  it  in  that  spirit  when  they 
staked  their  lives  upon  a  reform  policy.  It  was  understood, 
in  that  spirit,  by  Lord  Chatham  when  he  refused  the  spoils  of 
office,  and  declared — of  a  Parliament  steeped  in  patronage 
and  corruption — that  if  it  was  not  speedily  reformed  from 
within,  it  would  be  reformed  with  a  vengeance  from  with- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  359 

out  ;  by  William  Pitt  when  lie  brought  in  reform  bills  and, 
while  hving  on  a  narrow  income,  renounced  the  great  sine- 
cure salary  which  the  partisan  system  tendered  him  ;  by  Ed- 
mund Burke,  when  he  "  bent  the  whole  force  of  his  mind  " 
upon  those  great  measures-  of  reform  with  which  his  name  will 
be  forever  associated  ;  by  Lord  Grey  and  Sir  Robert  Peel 
when,  giving  their  best  efforts  to  reform  in  various  ways  ;  by 
Lord  Liverpool, 'when,  a  generation  ago,  he  surrendered  the 
patronage  of  promotion  in  favor  of  merit  in  the  Customs  ser- 
vice ;  by  Lord  Palmerston,  when  as  Prime  Minister  he  con- 
fronted the  seltishness  of  members  of  Parliament  who  opposed 
the  great  reform  of  1853  ;  by  Lord  Granville  when,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  declined  the  patronage  of  various  appointments 
^'  in  order  to  make  them  available  for  the  purpose  of  encourag- 
ing education  ;"  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  the  steady  and  vigorous 
support  he  has  given  to  administrative  reforni  during  his 
whole  official  life  ;  by  John  Bright  ^  and  Lord  Derby,  when, 
representing  the  opposite  j^arties,  they  devoted  so  much  labor 
to  the  great  civil-service  investigations  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred ;  by  the  eminent  statesmen  examined  on  those  investiga- 
tions, whose  convictions  find  expression  in  such  words  as  these  : 
*  all  persons  have  an  equal  rlgfit  to  be  candidates  if  they  are 
fit,'"  "  this  is  the  critical  part  of  our  national  institutions, 
namely,  the  selection  of  candidates  for  the  public  service  ;  "^ 
by  the  honest,  intelligent  people  generally,  of  every  class,  by 
ministere  representing  all  jiarties,  and,  finally,  even  by  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  themselves,  who  have  co-operated  in  ad- 
vancing the  new  system  at  home,  in  India,  and  every  depend- 
ency of  the  British  Empire.  And  can  we  believe  it  to  have  been 
understood  in  any  narrower  sense  by  the  leading  nations  of 
Europe,  which,  in  the  common  interest  of  good  administration 
and  national  safety,  have  one  after  another  destroyed  the 
official,  patronage  system,  and  the  class  monopoly  of  offices, 
upon  which  monarchies  were  originally  based,  and  opened 
them,  with  but  few  exceptions,  to  the  intelligence  and  worth 
of  the  people  irrespective  of  their  birth  or  their  political  opin- 
ions ? 

'  Sec  Letter  of  Mr.  Bright  in  Appendix  A.  «  See  ante,  p.  227. 

*  Report  Com.,  18T3,  vol.  i.,  p.  133. 


360  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

What  is  tlie  lesson,  of  such  a  history  and  of  such  results,  for 
the  United  States  ?  How  far  are  such  reforms  compatible 
with  our  constitution  and  social  life  ?  What,  if  any  thing, 
may  we  wisely  do  to  improve  our  administration,  in  the  hght 
of  such  an  experience  ?  Are  not  these  questions  vital  enough 
for  the  reflections  of  an  intelligent  people,  large  enough  for 
the  action  of  statesmen  in  a  great  republic  ? 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

THE     BEAEINQ      OF   BRITISH    EXPERIENCE     TPON     CIVIL      SERVICE 
REFORM   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

Caution  in  accepting  foreign  experience. — Tlie  theory  of  the  framcrs  of  our 
constitution  on  the  subject, — A  summary  of  the  principles  and  conclusions 
reached  in  British  administration. — The  question  of  a  long  term  of  office 
and  its  relations  to  the  merit  system. — Who  are  certain  to  oppose  the  new 
system. — Reasons  for  more  confidence  in  its  support. — The  world's  ex- 
perience on  its  side. — Who  are  the  theorists  and  the  doctrinaires  t — 
Who  the  statesmen  ? — Examinations  and  competitions  supported  by  an 
irresistible  public  opinion  in  Great  Britain. — Lord  Beaconsfleld  rebuked  by 
it. — Various  principles  and  methods  of  the  new  system  considered  in  refer- 
ence to  our  institutions. — The  right  to  claim  and  the  duty  to  bestow 
office. — The  extent  to  which  patronage  has  been  surrendered  by  the 
Crown,  by  noblemen,  and  officials  in  Great  Britain. — Have  our  officers 
equal  patriotism  ? — Our  subordinate  officials  made  feudal  dependents. — 
Whether  patronage  is  essential  to  the  utility  and  prosperity  of  parties. — 
Do  republics  awaken  less  patriotism  than  monarchies  ?— Parlies  would 
gain  more  than  they  would  lose  by  abandoning  the  spoils  system. — Prac- 
tical effects  of  adopting  the  merit  system. — It  would  destroy  a  vicious 
monopoly  over  office-getting. — Effects  on  the  Presidential  elections. — 
Promotes  self-reliance,  good  character,  and  education. — How  members  of 
Congress  would  be  affected. — Effects  on  custom-houses  and  other  local 
offices. — Consequences  of  bringing  persons  of  worth  and  capacity  into  sub- 
ordinate positions. — Promotions  for  merit. — The  merit  system  would 
give  new  dignity  to  office  and  government. — Means  by  which  the  reform 
may  be  advanced. — How  far  and  what  kinds  of  legislation  useful  or  prac- 
ticable.— Political  assessments. — The  reform  a  question  for  the  people, 
and  its  need  in  State  and  municipal  offices  as  well  as  in  Federal  offices. — 
Whether  we  have  the  public  virtue  to  carry  it  forward  and  are  as  unsel- 
fish and  patriotic  as  the  people  of  Great  Britain. — Competition  a  general 
law  of  progress. — The  permanent  nature  of  the  reform  issue. 

The  undertaking  to  point  out  tlie  bearing  of  the  reform 
measures  of  Great  Britain  upon  administrative  questions  in 
tlie  United  States  has,  the  author  trusts,  been  in  large  part  per- 
formed as  the  work  has  proceeded  ;  and  perhaps  few  sugges- 


862  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

tions  can  now  be  made  wliicli  have  not  already  occurred  to  the 
reader. 

The  mere  fact  tliat  any  given  principles  or  methods  of  politi- 
cal action  have  been  found  salutary  in  one  country,  is  by  no 
means  a  sufficient  reason  for  introducing  them  into  another  ; 
nor  is  it  often  that  corresponding  relations  among  officers,  or 
between  the  officials  and  the  people,  will  be  found  practicable 
in  any  two  countries.  But  the  probability  that  they  may 
be  naturally  increases  with  all  that  is  in  common  in  race, 
language  and  religion,  in  laws,  institutions,  and  civilization. 
And,  therefore,  notwithstanding  the  people  of  Great  Britain 
have  so  much  more  than  any  other  people  in  common  with 
ourselves,  the  mere  success  of  her  reform  measures  within  her 
own  borders  has  not  been  accepted  as  a  reason  why  we  should 
find  them  equally  salutary  ;  and  hence  their  influence  has 
been  considered  in  its  bearings  upon  liberty,  common  justice, 
general  education,  public  morality,  and  the  comj)licated  and 
essential  relations  of  great  parties  in  a  free  State.  In  the 
opening  chapter,  attention  was  called  to  the  extent  to  which  our 
fatliers  incorporated  into  their  new  structure  the  principles  of 
tlie  British  constitution.  It  is  worth}'  of  our  notice  that 
the  question  now  presented  is  not  so  much  a  question  about 
adopting  processes  and  methods  as  it  is  about  approving  cer- 
tain great  principles  which  embody  a  theory  of  political  mo- 
rality, of  official  obligation,  of  equal  rights  and  common  jus- 
tice in  government.  It  was  the  principle,  rather  than  the 
mere  methods,  of  the  division  of  government  into  three  great 
departments,  of  the  independence  of  the  judiciary,  of  free, 
parliamentary  debate,  of  representative  institutions,  of  trial 
by  jury,  of  the  haheas  cor2>us,  of  the  common  law,  of 
personal  rights,  of  the  subordination  of  the  military  to  the 
civil  power,  which  wc  adopted  in  our  original  constitution. 
The  question  now  before  us  is,  whether  the  nation  which  has 
maintained,  as  faithfully  as  we  have,  all  these  gi'eat  foundations 
of  liberty,  still  equally  fundamental  in  the  two  countries,  may 
not  now  be  able  to  tender  us  other  principles  worthy  of  our 
adoption,  which  she  has  developed  in  perfecting  the  vast  and 
complicated  operations  in  her  civil  affairs  during  the  period 
in  which — absorbed  by  the  interests  of  new  States  and  terri- 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  363 

tories  and  by  the  many  matters  peculiar  to  a  young  nation — 
wc  have  given  little  thought  to  the  practical  working  of  gov- 
ernment ?  Our  fathere  did  not  borrow  so  much  from  the 
mother  country  because  the  two  peoples  had  kindred  blood, 
spoke  the  same  language  and  gathered  inspiration  from  the 
same  literature,  but  because  England,  being  at  that  time  the 
freest  and  most  enlightened  of  the  old  nations,  and  her  higher 
precedents  having  been  forged  in  the  furnace  fires  of  lib- 
erty and  sanctioned  by  its  saints  and  martyrs,  were  best  adapt- 
ed to  our  needs  and  most  naturally  commanded  the  confidence 
of  our  early  statesmen.  Xow,  as  then,  the  two  great  English- 
speaking  nations  maintain  their  original  precedence  in  free- 
dom and  justice.  For  what  great  nation,  besides  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  even  yet  allows  a  true  freedom  of  de- 
bate and  of  the  press — makes  the  military  really  subordi- 
nate to  the  civil  power — affords  a  safe  asylum  for  the  A'ictims 
of  desj)otism — or  secures  an  efficient  protection  to  every  citizen 
without  the  aid  cf  bayonets  or  the  menace  of  policemen  bear- 
ing deadly  weapons  ?  Still,  after  all  such  general  reflections 
have  had  there  true  weight,  there  remain  the  direct  ques- 
tions :  Has  the  new  system  been  adequately  tested  ?  Is  it 
adapted  to  our  constitutions  and  social  life  ?  Is  it  republican 
in  spirit  and  consistent  with  the  practical  administration  of 
government  under  our  institutions  ?  Have  we  the  public  in- 
telligence and  virtue  which  warrant  the  attempt  to  carry  for- 
ward such  a  reform  ? 

Some  of  these  questions,  I  must  think,  have  been  sufficiently 
answered,  if  indeed  it  were  possible  to  hesitate  as  to  the 
answer  to  be  gi  ven  ;  and  the  others  can  be  more  intelligently 
considered  if  we  have  distinctly  before  our  minds  the  princi- 
ples and  conclusions  which  have  become  accepted  in  the  later 
expei'ience  of  Great  Britain.  They  may  be  briefly  stated  as 
follows : 

1.  Public  office  creates  a  relation  of  trust  and  duty  of  a 
kind  which  requires  all  authority  and  influence  partaining  to  it 
to  be  exercised  with  the  same  absolute  conformity  to  moral 
standards,  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  and  the  laws,  and 
to  the  common  interests  of  the  people,  which  may  be  insisted 
upon  in  the  use  of  public  money  or  any  other  common  prop- 


364  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

erty  of  the  people  ;  and,  therefore,  whatever  difficulty  may 
attend  the  practical  application  of  the  rule  of  duty,  it  is  iden- 
tically the  same  whether  it  be  applied  to  property  or  to  official 
discretion.  There  can  in  principle  be  no  official  discretion  to 
disregard  common  interests  or  to  grant  official  favors  to  per- 
sons or  to  parties. 

2.  So  far  as  any  right  is  involved,  in  filling  offices,  it  is  the 
right  of  the  people  to  have  the  worthiest  citizens  in  the  public 
service  for  the  general  welfare  ;  and  the  privilege  of  sharing 
the  honors  and  profits  of  holding  office  appertains  equally  to 
every  citizen,  in  proportion,  to  his  measure  of  character  and 
capacity  which  qualify  him  for  such  service,' 

4.  The  ability,  attainments,  and  character  requisite  for  the 
fit  discharge  of  official  duties  of  any  kind, — in  other  words,  the 
personal  merits  of  the  candidate — are  in  themselves  the  highest 
claim  upon  an  office.' 

5.  Party  government  and  the  salutary  activity  of  parties  are 
not  superseded,  but  they  are  made  purer  and  more  efficient, 
by  the  m^rit  system  of  office,'  which  brings  larger  capacity 
and  higher  character  to  their  support. 

6.  Government  by  parties   is   enfeebled  and  debased   by 
reliance   upon  a  partisan   system    of   appointments   and    rc- 

'  I  do  not  here  refer  to  cases  of  offices  conferred,  or  other  rewards 
given  as  compensation  for  patriotic  efforts  or  sacrifices,  by  the  act  of  tlie 
people,  who,  in  voting,  are  a  law  unto  themselves  ;  or  to  elections  by  the 
people  ;  but  to  the  exercise  of  power  by  an  officer,  whether  in  respect  to 
the  nomination,  confirmation,  or  removal  of  some  other  officer,  or  otherwise 
in  his  discretion.  Patronage  and  favoritism,  in  connection  with  the  exercise 
of  official  power,  are  therefore  in  their  very  nature  abuses — repugnant  to  the 
nature  of  the  official  trust — actual  violations  of  the  duty  which  the  officer 
owes  to  the  people — just  as  reprehensible  as  it  would  be  to  use  official  au- 
thority to  deprive  a  citizen  of  his  equal  right  to  send  his  children  to  the 
public  schools,  or  to  prevent  his  vote  being  cast  for  the  candidate  he  prefers 
— wrongs  upon  every  ground  upon  which  it  would  be  wrong  to  give  a  part 
of  the  public  money  or  of  the  pubhc  lands  to  a  person  not  having  a  good 
claim  to  it. 

*  Subject  of  course  to  the  limitations  mentioned  in  the  last  note ;  and 
therefore  to  ascertain  such  merits  and  to  decide  upon  competing  claims 
arising  thereunder  are  important  parts  of  the  duties  of  a  government,  and 
are  equally  essential  for  doing  justice  and  for  obtaining  good  officers. 

'  For  the  meaning  of  the  phrases,  the  "partisan  system"  and  the  "  merit 
system,"  as  here  used,  see  ante  pages,  77  to  81  and  161,  note. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAEST.  3G5 

movals  ;  and,  for  its  most  vigorous  life  and  salutary  influ- 
ence, it  is  only  needful  for  the  party  majority  to  select,  as  the 
representative  of  its  views  and  the  executors  of  its  policy,  the 
few  high  officers  with  whom  rests  the  power  to  direct  tlie  na- 
tional affairs,  and  to  instruct  and  keep  in  the  line  of  their  duty 
the  whole  body  of  their  subordinates'  through  whose  adminis- 
trative work  that  policy  is  to  be  carried  into  effect. 

7.  Patronage  in  the  hands  of  members  of  the  legislature, 
which  originated  in  a  usurpation  of  executive  functions,  in- 
creases the  expenses  of  administration,  is  degrading  and  de- 
moralizing to  those  who  possess  it,  is  disastrous  to  legislation, 
tends  to  impair  the  counterpoise  and  stability  of  the  govern- 
ment ;  and  it  cannot  withstand  the  criticism  of  an  intelligent 
people  when  they  fairly  comprehend  its  character  and  con- 
sequences.' 

8.  Examinations  (in  connection  with  investigations  of  char- 
acter) may  be  so  conducted  as  to  ascertain,  with  far  greater  cer- 
tainty than  by  any  other  means,  .the  persons  who  are  the  most 
fit  for  the  public  service  ;  and  the  worthiest  thus  disclosed  may 
be  selected  for  the  public  service  by  a  just  and  non-partisan 
method,  which  the  most  enlightened  public  opinion  will 
heartily  approve. 

9.  Open  competition  presents  at  once  the  most  just  and  prac- 
ticable means  of  supplying  fit  persons  for  appointment.  It  is 
proved  to  have  given  the  best  public  servants  ;  it  makes  an 
end  of  patronage  ;  and,  besides  being  based  on  equal  rights 
and  common  justice,  it  has  been  found  to  be  the  surest  safe- 
guard against  botli  partisan  coercion  and  official  favoritism. 

10.  Such  methods,  which  leave  to  parties  and  party  govern- 
ment their  true  functions  in  unimpaired  vigor,  tend  to  reduce 
manipulation,  intrigue,  and  every  form  of  corruption  in  poli- 

'  Where  the  line  between  the  two  classes  of  officei*s  should  be  drawn 
in  the  United  States — between  tliose  political  officers  who  command  all  the 
others  and  who  should  go  out  witli  each  administration,  and  those  adminis- 
trative officers  whose  duty  it  is  to  obey  their  superiors — it  is  not  my  purpose 
to  attempt  to  point  out.  The  first  class,  in  Great  Britain,  we  have  seen, 
includes  only  from  34  to  50  officials.  "We  cannot  draw  the  line  in  the 
United  States  until  after  we  have  adopted  the  principle  by  which  it  is  to  be 
guided.     See  ante,  pp.  80  to  83  and  IGl. 

*  See  chap.  14. 

24 


366  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

tics  to  their  smallest  proportions.  They  also  reward  learning, 
give  more  importance  to  character  and  principles  and  make 
political  life  more  attractive  to  all  worthy  citizens. 

11.  Regarded  as  a  w^hole,  the  new  system  has  raised  the 
ambition  and  advanced  both  the  self-respect  and  the  popular 
estimation  of  those  in  the  public  service,  while  it  has  encour- 
aged general  education,  arrested  demoralizing  solicitation  for 
office,  and  promoted  economy,  efficiency,  and  fidelity  in  public 
affairs. ' 

12.  A  system  is  entirely  practicable  under  which  official  sal- 
aries shall  increase  during  the  more  active  years  of  life,  and 
through  which  a  retiring  allowance  is  retained  to  be  j)aid  upon 
the  officer  leaving  the  public  service  ;  and  such  a  system  ap- 
pears to  contribute  to  economy  and  fidelity  in  administration. 

13.  Open  competition  is  as  fatal  to  all  the  conditions  of  a 
beaurocracy,  as  it  is  to  patronage,  nepotism  and  every  form  of 
favoritism,  in  the  public  service. 

14.  The  merit  system,  by  raising  the  character  and  capacity 
of  the  subordinate  service,  and  by  accustoming  the  people  to 
consider  personal  worth  and  sound  principles,  rather  than  sel- 
fish interest  and  adroit  management,  as  the  controlling  elements 
of  success  in  politics,  has  also  invigorated  national  patriotism, 
raised  the  standard  of  statesmanship,  and  caused  political 
leaders  to  look  more  to  the  better  sentiments  and  the  higher 
intelligence  for  support. 

II.  Such  are  the  principles  and  conclusions  which  have  ob- 
tained almost  universal  accejDtance  in  British  administration — 
and  perhaps,  I  may  add,  in  the  administration  of  every  nation 
of  the  old  world,  to  the  extent  that  its  government  has  been  lib- 
eral enough  to  tolerate  them.  Objections  are  most  likely  to  arise 
against  whatever — like  graded  salaries  and  retiring  or  super- 
annuation allowances — may  be  thought  to  favor  a  long  tenure 
of  office.  It  is  certainly  desirable  to  have  clear  views  upon 
these  points.  They  have  before  come  under  our  notice  in 
some  of  their  asj)ects  ;  and  I  must  leave  the  less  important 
questions  of  the  effects  of  graded  salaries  and  retiring  allow- 

1  See  Letter  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  Appendix  A  ;  and  in  Appendix  C 
will  be  found  the  results  of  a  short  trial,  within  narrow  limits,  of  the  merit 
system  in  the  United  States. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GKEAT   BRITAIN.  3G7 

aiices  to  tlie  obsen-ations  already  submitted.'  But  the  bearing 
of  the  merit  system  upon  the  tenure  of  office  perliaps  re- 
quires some  furtlier  notice.  That  system  and  tlie  partisan- 
spoils  system,  considered  in  relation  to  their  influence  -within 
the  service,  might  be  treated    under  three  separate  heads  : 

(1)  what  relates  to  bringing  persons  ii^to  the  public  service, 

(2)  what  relates  to  their  government  and  duty  while  there ; 

(3)  what  relates  to  the  determination  of  service.  It  would  be 
seen  that  the  question  of  duration  of  tenure  would  fall  wholly 
under  the  last  head.  But,  ander  the  partisan-spoils  system, 
the  question  of  removals  stands  in  close  relations  with  the 
question  of  appointments  ;  for  by  far  the  greater  number  of 
removals  arc  urged,  not  because  there  is  a  good  reason  for  put- 
ting the  officer  out,  but  because  there  is  a  pui-pose  to  put 
some  other  pereon  in  his  place.  All  serious  abuse  from  re- 
movals without  good  cause  will  disappear  the  moment  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  fill  the  vacancy  b}'  open  competition.  In 
deciding,  therefore,  how  long  an  officer  should  be  allowed  to  re- 
main in  his  place — or,  in  other  words,  for  what  reason  he 
should  be  removed — we  must  look  beyond  the  effects  upon 
himself  or  upon  the  office  he  fills,  to  the  general  influence  upon 
the  whole  question  of  proscription  and  of  partisan  intermed- 
dling in  administration.  But  as  all  these  collateral  influences 
make  in  favor  of  an  extended  tenn  of  office,  which  would  di- 
minish the  number  of  opportunities  for  con'upt  appointments, 
we  may  dismiss  them,  and  confine  our  attention  to  the  more 
direct  relations  between  tenure  of  office  and  the  new  system. 
It  needs  but  a  moment  of  reflection  to  make  it  plain  that 
neither  the  qualifications  demanded  for  entering  an  office,  nor 
the  influences  or  conditions  that  control  the  nomination  or 
confirmation,  have,  intrinsically  an3i:hing  to  do  -vritli  the  time 
during  which  the  office  is  to  be  held.  Nor  need  the  authorized 
causes  of  removal  have  any  intrinsic  relation  to  the  length  of 
tenure,  imless  the  fact  of  having  been  in  office  a  designated 
number  of  years  or  up  to  a  certain  age  be  made  in  itself  a 
ground  of  removal.  Every  other  part  of  the  merit  system 
could  be  put  in  practice,  and  no  small  share  of  its  salutary 
influences  might  be  secured,  though  the  present   tenure  of 

^  See  ante  pp.  141  to  143  and  pp.  291  to  297. 


36S  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

office  should  bo  left  unchanged  ;  however  rejDiignant  to  the 
spirit  of  that  system  removals  without  good  cause  may  be.  The 
most  rigid  competitions  may  be  set  up  at  the  door  of  every  office 
in  the  republic,  civil,  military,  and  naval — years  of  careful  study 
may  be  exacted  to  lit  applicants  for  their  special  duties — and  yet 
the  tenure  of  office  be  left  utterly  indefinite  and  jDrecarious, 
if  such  we  think  to  be  the  part  of  statesmanship  or  justice. 
Like  officers  in  the  old  Italian  republics,  our  civil  servants 
may  be  allowed  a  tenure  of  only  one,  three,  or  six  months, 
and,  like  the  Athenian  generals,  our  military  and  naval  officers 
may  be  allowed  to  command  for  only  a  single  day,  if  we  think 
that  the  part  of  wisdom.  What  does  the  public  interest 
require  in  that  regard  ?  is  the  decisive  question.  Neither 
nominations  nor  competitions  have  changed  the  tenure  of  office 
in  Great  Britain  or  in  India.  It  must  be  clear,  I  think,  that 
the  question  of  the  proper  tenure  of  office  may  be  treated  sep- 
arately and  upon  its  own  merits,  though  the  spirit  and  sug- 
gestion of  the  new  system  are  utterly  hostile  to  removals  for 
political  reasons.  And  if  the  principle  should  be  accepted  that 
the  best  qualified  person  has  the  strongest  claims  to  office,  and 
that  no  incompetent  person  should  be  appointed,  no  matter 
what  the  influence  in  his  favor,  there  is  little  ground  for 
doubt  that  experienced  and  worthy  officers  will  be  retained  as 
long  as  they  shall  properly  discharge  their  duties  and  the  pub- 
lic shall  have  need  of  their  services. 

There  is  really  no  question  presented,  as  to  having  a  perma- 
nent body  of  officers,  but  only  the  questions  as  to  each  class  of 
officers — or  more  accurately,  as  to  each  officer  :  What  tenure 
does  the  public  interest  require  ?  How  long  a  tenure  should 
the  laws  and  the  administrative  rules  therefore  encourage  ? 
Should  officers  be  exposed  to  arbitrary  and  capricious  removals  ? 
These  are  the  only  questions.  With  these  questions,  Great 
Britain  has  dealt  by  laying  down  certain  general  principles, 
but  not  by  actually  fixing  any  tenure  of  office,  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice. Much  less  has  she  made  the  fact  of  having  been  in 
office  a  certain  number  of  years  in  itself  a  cause  for  removal  or 
for  resignation.  If  we  think  that  having  been  in  the  service 
one  year  or  ten  years  is  a  good  cause  for  going  out — if  we 
feel  that  we   have   too   much   trained   skill   and   exj)erience 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  360 

in  our  administration — we  can  place  those  reasons  among  tlie 
grounds  of  removal  "for  cause."  It  is  not  mj  purpose  to 
consider  the  general  question  of  the  proper  tenure  of  office  in 
the  civil  service.  We  have  only  to  go  back  to  our  early 
laws  and  usages  to  find  a  system  far  more  in  harmony,  than 
the  spoils  system,  with  our  constitution  and  the  general  wel- 
fare. The  tenure  of  these  properly  constituting  the  civil 
service — at  least  as  the  constitution  was  understood  in  the 
earlier  and  less  partisan  period  of  our  history — was,  in  theory 
and  practice,  like  the  tenure  of  our  judiciary,  the  same  as 
the  British  Civil  Service  tenure,  as  I  have  defined  it.  The 
laws  limiting  the  official  terms  of  collectors,  naval  officers, 
post-masters,  or  other  subordinates,  to  four  years  or  other 
fixed  periods,  are,  like  the  practice  of  making  removals  to 
satisfy  the  greed  of  parties  and  the  clam.oi-s  of  favorites 
and  henchmen,  the  fruits  of  the  proscriptive  spirit  which 
began  to  be  so  powerful  and  reckless  in  the  last  generation. 
They  were  opposed  by  our  greatest  statesmen,  and  they  re- 
spond to  partisan  greed  rather  than  to  public  interests.  What 
we  need  in  this  regard  is  not  what  is  new,  but  a  return  to 
the  rule  and  the  practice  of  the  fathers  of  the  constitution. 
These  laws,  I  venture  to  think,  and  the  question  of  the  most 
salutary  tenure  of  office  in  all  its  forms,  national,  state,  and 
municipal — as  to  which  the  discordant  and  fluctuating  official 
terms  indicate  a  lamentable  absence  of  a  matured  jjublic  opin- 
ion— will  not  long  hence  be  recognized  as  worthy  the  most 
serious  consideration  because  they  concern  the  morality  of  poli- 
tics and  the  economy  and  integrity  of  official  life. 

It  is  not,  of  course,  to  be  expected  that  methods  of  adminis- 
tration which  tend  to  diminish  the  spoils  of  party  managers 
and  the  arbitrary  patronage  of  officials,  in  the  same  ratio  that 
-  they  increase  the  just  opportunities  for  office  of  every  man 
and  woman  of  worth  and  capacity,  will  in  this  country,  any 
more  than  they  did  in  Great  Britain,  escape  the  persistent  and 
unscrupulous  hostility  of  those  whose  occupation  and  jirofits 
they  threaten.  With  many  of  this  latter  class,  reason  is  of  lit- 
tle avail,  and  they  may  be  left  to  repeat  the  sneers  and  the 
sarcasms,  the  falsehoods  and  the  fallacies,  long  so  familiar, 
but  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  abandoned  as  stale  and  una- 


370  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

trailing,  in  British  politics.  We  have  donbtless  a  class  of  ex- 
treme partisans  ready  to  listen  and  to  langli  at  their  reiteration  ; 
ignorant  enough,  perhaps,  even  to  believe  they  have  rea- 
son and  experience  on  their  side  ;  prejudiced  enough  to  reject 
whatever  is  denounced  as  of  foreign  origin.  It  will  only  be 
another  example  of  the  repetition  of  English  liistory,  if  we  shall 
find  aspiring  party -leadere  and  a  certain  stamp  of  oificials  be- 
coming more  and  more  widely  separated  from  the  most  un- 
selfish and  patriotic  portion  of  the  people,  and  more  and  more 
making  their  appeal  to  a  highly  organized  body  of  servile  fol- 
lower, who  substitute  manipulation  for  statesmanship  and 
convert  politics  into  a  trade.  So  long  as  faith  in  patronage 
retains  its  influence,  and  the  spoils  of  victory  attract  and  re- 
ward the  politicians,  why,  in  the  light  of  reason  any  more 
than  in  the  light  of.  history,  should  we  be  surprised  at  those 
later  and  ominous  phases  of  our  politics,  wherein  we  see  par- 
tisan contests  losing  none  of  their  fierceness,  when  all  real 
differences  of  avowed  principles  have  ceased  to  exist,  and  both 
parties,  in  theory,  joining  in  reprobation  of  the  identical  abuses 
which  both  alike  practise  ?  It  is  further  worthy  of  notice  that 
the  increasing  divergence  and  repugnance,  in  recent  years,  be- 
tween the  independent  voters  and  the  partisan  politicians,  are 
quite  as  much  due  to  the  more  vigorous  reforming  sj^irit  of 
the  former  as  to  any  growing  servility  and  intrigue  of  the 
latter.  Here,  as  was  the  case  in  Great  Britain,  that  diver- 
gence and  repugnance  must  go  on  increasing  until  the  reform 
ing  elements  shall  obtain  the  mastery,  unless,  indeed,  Ave  are 
to  fall  under  the  hopeless  bondage  of  the  spoils  system. 

III.  But  has  not  the  time  arrived  when  the  friends  of  reform 
are  justified  in  using  a  more  decided  and  confident  language — 
when  they  ought  to  make  prominent  the  great  fact  that  the  system 
of  administration  which  they  commend  is  as  well  founded  in  ex- 
perience as  it  is  in  sound  and  just  ]3rinciples  ?  The  nie?'it  sy stern 
now  presents  itself,  not  merely  as  a  fine  theory  or  as  a  high, 
ideal  conception  of  purity  and  justice  in  politics,  but  as  an  em- 
bodiment of  principles  and  methods  matured  during  a  century, 
in  which  the  foremost  statesmen  have  bent  their  minds  upon 
good  administration  as  never  before — as  a  system  of  practical 
arrangements  and  safeguards  whicJi  at  every  stage  of  develop- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRIIAIX.  371 

ment  have  gone  on  from  victory  to  victory,  under  the  eyes  of 
the  most  practical  of  administrators,  in  the  most  practical  and 
utilitarian  of  nations — as  conclusions  and  results  reached  not 
on  the  British  Islands  alone,  but  in  colonies  and  provinces 
variously  governed,  and  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe  (except  in 
the  United  States),  where  the  English  language  is  spoken — 
as  principles  and  methods  tested  and  confirmed,  so  far  as 
the  form  of  government  has  been  liberal  enough  for  such  con- 
firmation, by  the  administrative  experience  of  all  the  nations 
which  lead  the  world  in  commerce,  arms,  and  industry,  in  educa- 
tion, morality,  and  religion.  Xor  can  the  better  or  even  the 
longer  part  of  the  experience  of  the  United  States  be  cited 
against  it.  Our  first  generations  sustained  administrative 
methods  quite  in  tlie  spirit  of  these  later  reforms.  And 
for  every  candid  pei*son  who  really  approves  our  partisan-spoils 
system  of  later  yeare,  there  are  scores  of  worthier  men  (hav- 
ing views  of  a  remedy,  perhaps  rather  obscure)  with  whom 
that  system  is  an  abhorrence  and  a  dcsj)air.  Outside  of  the 
American  Union,  that  spoils  system  has  not  the  support  of  a 
single  State  above  the  moral  level  of  Mexico,  Turkey,  and 
the  factious  Spanish- American  republics  which  our  backsliding 
example  has  helped  to  demoralize.  It  is  not,  therefore,  the 
friends  of  the  merit  system — not  the  reformer — who  are  theo- 
rists, and  who  insist  on  measures  not  yet  justified  by  good  re- 
sults in  practice.  It  is  rather  the  paitisans,  the  party  leaders 
claiming  to  be  statesmen — all  those  who  insist  on  applying  the 
partisan  spoils  theory,  after  all  the  higher  public  oj^inion  of 
their  owtii  country  and  the  judgment  of  all  enlightened  man- 
kind beyond  their  own  country  have  condemned  it — who  are 
the  theorists.  It  is  they  who  have  got  a  favorite  method — un- 
known to  our  fathers,  novel  in  our  history — of  managing  par- 
ties and  of  getting  into  and  holding  office,  which  they  enfoi*ce 
with  the  passion  of  enthuiasists  and  the  recklessness  of  theorists. 
In  anotlier  sense,  indeed,  they  are  not  theorists,  but  plant 
their  feet  on  ancient  usage,  inviting  us  to  go  back  on  the 
road  of  civilization  and  again  put  in  force  tlie  metliods  of 
James  II.,  of  Walix)le,  Newcastle,  and  George  III.  ;  claim- 
ing, as  they  did,  that  an  administration  cannot  be  kept  in 
power  without  proscription,  that  patronage  is  a  fit  perquisite 


372  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

of  members  of  legislature,  that  offices  and  places  are  the  just 
and  essential  spoils  of  party  victory.  If  he  be  not  a  theorist  or 
an  enthusiast,  how  shall  we  describe  the  man  who  calls  upon 
us  to  shut  our  eyes,  both  to  the  degradation  of  our  spoils  sys- 
tem and  to  the  beneficent  experience  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  under  the  merit  system,  to  allow  our  officers  to  appro- 
priate the  perquisites  and  employ  language  of  feudal  lords  of 
the  middle  ages,  to  deny  ourselves  the  right  and  opportunity 
of  gaining  office  by  reason  of  our  own  merits,  or  otherwise 
than  upon  the  consent  of  patronage  monoi^olists  and  jtartisan 
manipulators?  What  is  a  doctrinaire  but  one  "who  rigidly 
applies  to  political  or  practical  concerns  the  absolute  principles 
of  his  own  system,"  without  due  regard  to  j^ast  experience 
and  practical  consequences  ?  And  who  are  such  doctrinaires  ? 
The  men  who  urge  the  partisan  spoils  system  upon  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  without  being  able  to  show  that  there, 
or  in  any  quarter  of  the  world,  it  has  produced  any  good  results, 
or  the  men  who  urge  the  merit  system,  because  they  find  it  in 
practice  m  every  other  enlightened  nation,  and  are  able  to  show 
that,  in  every  instance  where,  in  any  degree,  it  lias  superseded 
the  spoils  system,  it  has  in  that  degree  checked  abuses  and 
raised  political  life  to  a  higher  plane  ?  And  who  is  the  states- 
man, the  man  who  scorns  tlie  higher  sentiments,  who  defies 
the  broader  experience,  who  bends  his  energies  upon  manip- 
ulating his  party,  who  puts  his  faith  in  the  selfish  instincts,  in 
patronage  and  in  spoils,  who  lives  on  the  adulation  of  servile 
politicians  and  forfeits  the  respect  of  nobler  minds  ;  or  the 
man  who  has  faith  in  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  considers  the  great  questions  of  his  country  in  the 
light  of  its  permanent  interests,  who  recognizes  moral  forces 
and  obligations  in  politics,  who,  rising  above  narrow  preju- 
dices and  selfish  interests,  gives  due  weight,  in  all  his  judg- 
ments, to  the  experience  and  wisdom  of  tlie  great  nations  who 
share  in  the  leadership  of  human  affairs  'i ' 

The  merit  system  comes  before  us  not  only  sanctioned  by 
this  long,  this  diversified,  this  almost  universal  experience,  but 

'  "  A  belief  in  the  perfection  of  their  own  systems  could  only  exist  among 
a  people  who  knew  nothing  of  any  other  systems." — A  History  of  Our 
Own  Times,  1879,  hy  McCarthy,  vol.  i.,  chap.  8. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIX.  373 

supported  by  a  matured  and  cnligliteiied  i)ul)lic  opinion, 
whicli  seems  to  secure  for  it  the  same  elements  of  permanency 
which  are  the  safeguards  of  our  dearest  constitutional  pro- 
visions. A  pervading  sense  of  its  justice  and  the  intelligent 
conviction  of  the  British  people  that  it  is  essential  to  their 
well-being  entrench  it  in  tlie  j^opnlar  judgment.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  tliat  they  have  deliberately  accepted  these  three 
principles  as  axioms  in  their  politics  :  (1)  that  the  true  and 
highest  claims  upon  office  are  the  character  and  capacity  that 
best  qualify  a  person  to  discharge  its  duties  ;  (2)  that  common 
"justice  requires  the  application  of  a  fair  public  test  for  ascer- 
taining these  qualifications  ;  and  (3)  that  he  who  tlius  presents 
the  highest  evidence  of  fitness  has  morally,  and  should  have 
legally,  a  right  to  receive  the  office.  They  ceased  to  reason 
upon  these  maxims  yeare  ago.  The  j)ublic  conviction  has  become 
so  decided  and  outspoken  that  no  law  seemed  necessary  to  in- 
sure obedience  to  them,  and  none  has  ever  been  enacted ' 
which  requires  it,  or  even  examinations  and  competitions  for 
the  civil  service ;  these  latter  resting,  so  far  as  any  coercive 
element  is  concerned,  on  the  orders  in  Council,  the  demands  of 
public  opinion,  and  the  conditions  of  retiring  allowances. 
From  the  very  outset,  proceedings  under  the  new  system 
have  been  regarded  by  British  statesmen  as  an  agency  of  higher 
education  in  public  affaii's.  It  has  been  treated  as  but  an  act 
of  justice  to  the  people  that  they  should  be  kept  informed  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  appointing  power  is  exercised.  "  The 
examinations  should  not  only  be  rightly  conducted,  but  they 
should  be  shown  to  tlie  whole  country  to  be  rightly  conducted  ; 
and  every  amount  of  publicity  should  be  given  to  them."" 
"  I  think  it  would  be  very  advantageous  that  every  thing  in  the 
matter  of  appointment  and  promotion  or  transfei^  should  be 
known  to  the  public."'  That  publicity  has  been  attained; 
and  clear  and  ample  reports  and  the  records  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commission   leave  no  use  of  the  aj^pointiiig  power, 

'  Except  for  British  India. 

'  2  Report  Commiltce  1873  and  '4,  pp.  105  and  103.  Evidence  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan. 

'  Report  1873  and  '4,  vol.  i.  p.  133.  Evidence  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. 


37i  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN    GKEAT   liKITALST. 

and  no  reasons  npon  whieli  it  lias  proceeded,  concealed 
from  tlie  knowledge  or  the  criticism  of  the  people.  Those 
exercises  of  official  authority  are  treated  as  no  more  party 
or  official  secrets  than  the  nse  made  of  the  seats  in  the 
public  schools  or  of  the  moneys  in  the  national  treas- 
ury. This  opening  of  the  public  mind  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  morals  and  the  logic  of  administration,  while  overawing 
official  favoritism  within  the  departments,  has  educated  the 
people  up  to  a  higher  sense  of  their  rights  and  their  duties. 
And  may  we  not  well  ask  ourselves  whether  this  salutary 
publicity — this  new  educational  and  purifying  influence  in 
politics — is  possible  only  where  the  executive  wears  a  crown, 
where  the  senate  is  hereditary,  where  privileged  classes  and  a 
state  church  are  tolerated  ?  In  a  republic,  must  all  such  affairs 
be  shrouded  in  mystery,  in  order  that  they  may  the  more  easily 
be  made  subservient  to  partisan  interests  ?  Must  they  be 
planned  in  secrecy,  and  be  carried  into  effect  with  defiance,  as 
a  part  of  the  irresponsible  discretion  and  jjrivileges  of  republi- 
can officials  ?  However  that  may  be,  I  repeat  that  this  pul)- 
licity  in  Great  Britain  has  developed  a  public  opinion  so  dis- 
criminating and  stern  that  examinations  and  comj^etitions 
stand  unchallenged  and  impregnable  ^vithin  the  rampants  of  its 
high  sanction  alone.  No  minister  or  party  Avould  now  dare 
affront  that  opinion.  Indeed,  a  party  might  almost  as  safely 
discriminate  on  political  grounds  in  levying  taxes,  or  a  minis- 
try in  collecting  them,  awarding  contracts,  or  allowing  suffrage, 
as  to  make  nominations  or  removals  in  the  civil  service  for 
partisan  reasons  or  in  violation  of  reform  principles  or  methods. 
There  liave  been  striking  examples  of  the  power  of  that 
opinion  to  bring  ministers  and  cabinets  to  obedience,  in  which 
members  of  Parliament,  once  so  hostile,  appear  to  have  made 
haste  to  speak  for  the  new  and  popular  system.  When,  for 
example,  a  few  years  since,  Mr.  Layard  w^as  thought  to  have 
been  appointed  Minister  to  Spain  in  violation  of  the  civil  ser- 
vice system,  the  cabinet  was  speedily  forced  to  vindicate  the 
regularity  of  its  action  before  Parliament.  In  the  late  pro- 
motion of  a  Mr.  Pigott  to  a  very  subordinate  place.  Lord 
Beaconsfield  Avas  believed  to  have  departed  from  the  spirit  of  the 
civil   service  rules.     So   vigorous  was   the   protest,  so  fierce 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN.  OiO 

was  tlie  assault  of  the  press,  so  many  of  liis  own  party  re- 
fused to  sustain  liim,  that  his  administration  suffered  its  first 
defeat.  A  vote  of  censure  was  earned  against  him  upon  the 
question  raised,  in  a  House  in  which  his  party  had  a  majority 
of  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  votes.  So  intense  was  the  feehng 
that  "  the  House  of  Commons  was  deserted,  and  the  members 
flocked  to  liear  what  their  former  colleague  could  say  in  the 
House  of  Lords. "  It  was  only  by  a  frank  and  elaborate  speech, 
in  self  vindication,  showing  that  the  charge  was  unwarranted, 
that  the  prime  minister  saved  himself  from  the  necessity  of 
resignation.  A  well-informed  American,  long  resident  in 
England,  referring  to  this  event,  says  that  "  the  point  for  us  is 
that  civil  service  reform  is  so  much  a  reality  in  this  country  that 
one  of  the  strongest  governments  that  England  has  ever  seen 
suffered  a  defeat  in  the  house,  because  it  was  supposed,  in  a 
single  instr.ncc,  to  have  overriden  the  settled  principle  which 
now  controls  apjjointments  to  office — the  principle  that  fitness 
for  office,  and  not  need  of  office  nor  party  service,  shall  be  con- 
sidered in  the  nomination  of  public  servants.'"  In  these  facts 
we  may  not  only  see  how  soon,  by  proper  means  of  education,  a 
debauched  public  opinion  may  be  elevated  into  a  conservative 
moral  power,  but  we  may  be  reminded  that,  in  our  own  country 
also,  the  time  has  been  when  oflices  could  not  be  used  as  par- 
tisan spoils,  without  an  equal  shock  to  the  public  sense  of  duty 
and  justice.  For  "  when  the  Democratic  party  came  into 
power  with  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  removals  were  few — so  few  that 
single  cases  excited  a  sense  of  wronor  throuorh  a  whole  State."  " 
*'  Then,  the  dismissal  of  a  few  inconsiderable  officers,  on  party 
grounds  as  was  supposed,  was  followed  by  a  general  burst  of 
indignation  ;  but  now  the  dismissal  of  thousands,  when  it  is 
openly  avowed  that  the  public  offices  are  the  spoils  of  the 
victors,  produces  scarcely  a  sensation."  '  These  facts  show  ns 
that  tlce  moral  tone  of  politics^  to  which  the  British  people 
have  risen^  is  only  that  of  our  last  generation^  from  which  we 
have  fallen. 

The  evidence  of   the  permanency  of  the  new  system  ap- 
peal's to  be  not  less  decisive  than  that  of  its  popularity.     Sir 

'  Letter  of  Mr.  Smallcy,  New  Yorlc  Tribune,  August  4,  1877. 
— -    "^  Woolsey's  Political  Science,  vol.  ii.,  p.  561. 
'  SiJcech  J.  C.  Calhoun  in  U.  S.  Senate  in  183.5. 


S76  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Charles  Trevelyan," — now  enjoying  public  respect  in  his  retire- 
ment, and  who,  I  believe,  is  justlj  thought  to  have  exhibited 
more  practical  statesmanship  than  the  whole  body  of  parlia- 
mentary monopolists  and  partisan  manipulators  who  sneered  at 
and  obstructed  the  new  system  in  its  earlier  stages — says, 
"  You  cannot  lay  too  much  stress  upon  the  fact  that  the  mak- 
ing of  public  ajipointments  by  open  comj)etition  has  been  ac- 
cepted by  all  our  political  parties,  and  there  is  no  sign  of  any 
movement  against  it  from  any  quarter."  ^  In  the  fact  of  his 
holding  the  high  positions  of  head  of  the  British  Treasury 
and  leader  of  the  Conservatives  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
(where  he  faithfully  carries  into  effect  his  own  reform  methods), 
Sir  Stafford  Nortlicote  illustrates  not  less  the  abiding  nature  of 
the  reform  toward  which  he  has  so  much  contributed  than  he 
does  the  feeling  of  the  people  toward  its  authors.  The  decla- 
ration of  John  Bright,  who  may  speak  for  the  Liberals,  to  the 
effect  that  ' '  it  would  be  impossible  to  go  back  to  the  old 
system,'-"  has  already  been  quoted.  But  there  arc  assur- 
ances of  the  stability  of  the  reform  methods  far  beyond 
what  can  be  shown  by  examples  or  on  the  authority  of 
great  names.  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  sentiment,  now 
pervading  every  class  of  respectable  society,  that  patronage- 
mongering  by  members  of  Parliament  is  ignominious  and 
disgraceful ;  that  bartering  in  nominations  and  ^prostituting  the 
appointing  power  for  selfish  or  partisan  purj)oses  is  a  repre- 
hensible breach  of  official  trust ;  that  it  is  not  less  an  act  of  jus- 
tice than  of  wisdom  to  give  the  offices  to  those  shoMm  in  a  fair 
contest  to  be  best  qualified  to  hold  them.  "While  parties  havei 
ceased  to  look  to  patronage  or  spoils  as  sources  of  strength, 
and  no  man  or  woman  of  respectability  can  be  found  to  defend 
the  old  system,  all  the  young  men  and  women  M'ho  have  so 
much  as  a  common-school  education — all  honest  persons  of 
the  rising  generation  who  have  the  capacity  and  attainments 
which  justify  a  hope  of  reaching  even  the  lowest  aj^point- 
ments — recognizing  no  party  issue  in  the  subject,  stand  to- 

'  Already  mentioned  as  having,  with  Sir  Stafford  Nortbcotc,  first  pre- 
sented the  merit  system  in  a  formal  report  in  1851. 
^  See  his  second  letter  in  Appendix  A. 
2  See  his  letter  in  Appendix  A. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  377 

gether  for  a  system  wliicli  has  conferred  new  honors  upon 
learning  and  a  higlier  dignity  npon  simple  manhood.  They 
now  comprehend  that  every  office,  which  has  been  bestowed  as 
patronage  or  spoils,  was  so  much  pillaged  from  the  just  inher- 
itance of  good  citizens  and  so  much  capital  added  to  the  cor- 
ruption fund  of  partisan  politics.  These  facts  are  not  without 
an  important  bearing  upon  our  affairs.  Tliose  worthy  citi- 
zens who  have  so  little  faith  in  public  virtue  and  intelligence 
that  they  fear  a  reform  can  never  gain  strength  enough  to  with- 
stand its  natural  enemies,  unless  it  be  first  made  a  part  of  the 
constitution  itself — who  excuse  themselves  and  their  party  for 
not  beginning  it  from  a  fear  that  the  other  party  coming 
into  power  would  overthrow  it  ^ — may  perhaps  find  encourage- 
ment in  such  results,  ai;d  be  able  to  see  that  justice  and  wis- 
dom are  not  without  power  even  in  politics.  They  may  be- 
gin to  comprehend  that  tlie  great  principles  involved  in  ad- 
ministrative reform,  when  fairly  presented,  take  a  strong  hold 
of  the  public  mind  (without  the  support  of  laws  or.  of  con- 
stitutions), because  they  have  inherent  powers  of  vitality 
which  appeal  alike  to  the  general  sense  of  justice  and  to 
every  individual's  conception  of  his  own  personal  rights. 
Efficiently,  therefore,  as  a  party  might  support  these  principles, 
the  conditions  of  their  success  are  in  no  small  degree  inde- 
pendent of  the  action  of  parties  or  the  sympathy  of  legislators. 
Indeed,  that  is  one  of  the  most  significant  and  encouraging 

'  What  measure  is  there  at  issue  between  the  parties  against  the  adoption 
of  which  such  a  reason  would  [not  witli  equal  force  apply  ?  Each  party  is 
ready  to  reverse  any  measures  of  its  adversary  if  the  public  will  sustain  it 
in  doing  so.  But  here  again  the  experience  of  Gront  Britain  is  instructive  ; 
and  in  the  triumph  of  the  merit  system  there,  over  both  parties,  we  find  evi- 
dence  that  such  want  of  faith  in  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  people  is 
without  warrant ;  unless  indeed  wo  believe  that  those  qualities  are  higbef 
in  Great  Britain  than  in  the  United  States.  In  the  light  of  that  experience, 
is  there  much  reason  to  doubt  that — when,  in  1874  members  of  Congress 
betrayed  the  reform  policy  to  which  they  and  the  party  in  power  were  com- 
mitted— if  the  President  had  stood  firmly  for  it.  and  had  withstood  the 
patronage-mongers  and  partisans  who  beset  him  as  stubbornly  as  he  with- 
stood his  enemies  on  the  battle-field,  he  would  have  prevented  its  temporary 
abandonment;  and  might,  by  adhering  to  its  principles,  have  averted  a  great 
loss  of  support  by  the  dominant  party,  and  have  established  additional 
claims  to  the  gratitude  of  his  country  ? 


378  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

lessons  of  Britisli  experience  wliicli  sliows  tlie  power  of  tliese 
principles,  when  once  in  the  mind  of  the  intelligent  and  inde- 
pendent voters,  to  arrest  the  arrogance  of  politicians  and  to  bring 
members  of  Parliament  to  their  duty.  "  Large  as  were  the 
numbers  who  j)rofited  by  the  former  system,  .  .  .  those 
left  out  .  .  .  were  still  larger  and  included  some  of  the 
best  classes  of  our  population  ;  .  .  .  professional  persons  of 
every  kind,  lawyers,  ministers  of  religion  of  every  persuasion, 
schoolmastei's,  farmers,  shopkeepers,  etc.,  .  .  .  who 
rapidly  took  the  idea  of  the  new  institution  .  .  .  as  a  val- 
uable privilege.  .  .  .  Whatever  may  have  been  the  indi- 
vidual sentiments  of  members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  they 
received  such  pressing  letters  from  tlieir  constituents  as  obliged 
tJiem  to  vote  straight.''''^  Patronage  became  odious  from  the 
moment  it  was  exposed,  and  fell  mortally  wounded  by  its  first 
defeat. 

lY.  If,  from  these  considerations  relating  to  the  stability  and 
trustworthiness  of  the  new  system,  we  turn  to  the  principles 
and  methods  upon  which  it  proceeds,  interesting  questions  at 
once  present  themselves  as  to  their  adaptation  to  our  social  con- 
dition and  form  of  government.  It  would  be  little  less  than 
an  insult  to  the  intelligence  of  the  reader  to  gravely  argue  that 
a  jjolicy,  which  would  bring  into  places  of  public  trust  the 
moral  character  and  the  intelligence  needed  for  the  proper  dis- 
charge of  their  duties,  is  at  least  as  appropriate  and  needful  in 
a  republic  as  in  a  monarchy.  Is  a  monarchy  with  a  state 
church  creed  at  the  door  of  every  office,  with  an  hereditary 
executive  which  is  the  source  of  all  office,  with  its  Upper 
House  of  Parliament  whose  members  take  their  seats  as  an 
inheritance,  with  birthright  and  property  as  the  basis  of  politi- 
cal and  social  pri\nleges,  with  its  vast  and  imposing  system  of 
ranks,  honors,  and  decorations — the  natural  friend  and  sup- 
porter of  such  a  policy  ?  And  is  a  republic — which  proclaims 
justice,  personal  equality,  and  common  rights  as  its  cardinal 
principles,  which,  discarding  property  and  birthright,  makes 
virtue,  liberty,  and  intelligence  its  chief  reliance — a  sort  of 
natural  enemy  which  should  look  upon  that  policy  with  dis- 

'  Letter  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  Appendix  A. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  379 

trust,  if  not  with  dread  ?  If  any  among  ourselves  are  so  par- 
tisan or  so  prejudiced  as  not  to  be  able  to  see  that  every  step 
which  nionarcliies  have  taken  in  the  way  of  that  policy  is  re- 
pugnant to  the  main  principles  of  their  original  form  of  govern- 
ment, while  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  in  complete  harmony  with 
our  institutions,  English  statesmen  at  least  are  not  so  blind. 
They  comprehend  the  fitness  of  the  merit  system  for  tlie  refor- 
mation of  our  abuses.  "  I  have  long  been  stnick  by  the  singular 
suitableness  of  our  new  but  well-tried  institution,  of  making 
public  appointments  by  open  competition,  for  the  correction  of 
some  of  tlie  woi-st  results  of  the  United  States  political  sys- 
tem." ^  We  have  already  seen  that  the  merit  system,  as  estab- 
lished in  Great  Britain,  has  been  built  upon  the  fundamental 
principles  of  common  right,  individual  worth,  and  universal 
justice.  "  All  persons  have  an  equal  right  to  be  candidates  if 
they  are  fit  ;  .  .  .  we  consider  the  rigid  of  competing 
should  be  open  to  all  persons  of  a  given  age  ;  ...  if  you 
do  not  concede  that  right,  and  make  it  accessible,  you  do  in- 
justice^ first  to  the  public  service  and  then  to  Her  Majesty's 
subjects  generally,"  "^  is  the  language  of  the  British  statesmen 
who  devised  and  put  that  system  in  practice,  and  the  view 
of  the  people  who  sustain  it.  Are  these  principles — are 
such  ideas  of  right  and  justice — safe  and  appropriate  to  be 
carried  into  practice  in  a  monarchy,  but  repugnant  and  danger- 
ous in  a  repui)lic  ?  After  they  have  achieved  a  victory  in  the 
mother  country  over  so  many  centuries  of  official  despotism  and 
aristocratic  monopoly — while  they  are  now  being  applied  in 
every  quarter  of  the  globe  where  English-speaking  people  arc 
under  a  royal  flag — is  it  fit  and  natural  that  they  should  be 
distnisted  and  denied — that,  in  the  true  feudal  spirit,  patronage 
and  spoils  should  still  be  allowed  as  the  perquisites  of  officials — 
in  the  leading  republic  of  the  world  ?  The  standard  of  official 
duty,  in  the  light  of  which  these  ideas  of  justice  and  right 
are  to  be  carried  into  effect,  is,  according  to  these  statesmen, 
this  :  "  Public  office  is  a  solemn  trust,  and  one  of  its  most  im- 
portant conditions  is  to  choose  the  best  possible  men  for  the 
different  places."     Shall  we  look  upon  this  as  an  obligation  of 

'  Letter  Sir  Cliarlcs  Trcvcl^-an,  Appendix  A. 
'  Sec  ante.  pp.  190  and  227. 


380  CIVIL  SERVICE  I^^  great  Britain. 

official  life  fit  to  be  observed  in  a  monarchy,  but  wliich  officers 
in  a  republic  should  be  at  liberty  to  disregard  as  inconsistent 
witli  the  constitution  of  their  country  or  too  high  for  the 
spirit  of  its  politics  and  the  morals  of  its  administration/ 
Looking  to  the  ultimate  aims  of  the  new  system,  we  find 
them  not  to  rest  in  mere  economy  or  efficiency  or  in  anything 
within  the  circles  of  administration,  but  to  comprehend  the  pros- 
perity and  the  elevation  of  the  people  at  large.  "  I  am  not 
indifferent  to  the  consideration  that  offices  have  become  the 
patrimony  of  tha  ])oorer  pa7't  oi  the  middle  class,  or  even,  per- 
haps, of  the  working  class,"  says  a  British  statesman  at  the 
head  of  his  party  in  Parliament/  "  I  should  regret  that  any 
man  should  be  debarred  .  .  .  who  possessed  energy  and 
ability  enough  to  enable  him,  in  a  humble  position  of  life,  to 
succeed  at  the  competitive  examinations,"  says  the  Viceroy  of 
India,^  while  commending  the  new  system  in  that  dominion. 
Are  these  national  aims  and  sympathies  appropriate  to  be  en- 
couraged in  the  theories  and  the  very  processes  of  royal  ad- 
ministration, but  such  as  a  republic  may  wisely  discard  for  the 
greater  blessings  of  favoritism,  patronage,  and  spoils — for  a 
system  which  thrusts  back  or  crushes  every  poor  and  humble 
applicant  for  an  office  or  a  j)lace  under  the  government,  how- 
ever high  his  character  or  ample  his  capacity,  unless  he  prom- 
ises servility,  has  voters  at  his  back  or  influence  at  his  bidding  ? 
We  have  seen  members  of  the  British  Cabinet  refusing 
patronage 'in  order  that  the  places  which  they  would  be  en- 
abled to  hand  over  to  competition  might  become  the  prizes  of 
popular  education.  Eminent  statesmen  have  sustained  the  new 
system  the  more  heartily  because  it  was  seen  to  be  favorable  to 
the  general  instruction  of  the  people,  "  to  which  it  has  given 
a  marvellous  stimulus."*  It  would  be  an  affront  to  the 
reader's  intelligence  to  ask  the  question  whether  the  encour- 

'  Whatever  answer  politicians  may  give,  tlie  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  has  declared  that  "  the  theory  of  our  government  is  that  all  public 
stations  are  trusts,  and  that  those  clothed  with  them  are  to  be  animated  in 
the  discharge  of  their  duties  solely  by  considerations  of  right,  justice,  and 
the  public  good."— Trist  v.  Child,  21  Wallace  R.  450. 

"  Ante,  p.  324.  '  Ante,  p.  252. 

••  See  pp.  190,  201,  214,  note,  and  see  Sir  Charles  Trcvelyan's  letter,  Ap 
pcndix  A. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  381 

agement  of  popular  education  is  in  the  spirit  of  republican 
institutions.  But  may  we  not  well  pause  and  consider — in 
presence  of  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  is  gaining  upon  us,  and 
that  sev^eral  monarchies  have  already  surpassed  us,  in  the 
education  of  tlie  people,  and  of  the  further  fact  that  the 
ratio  of  well-educated  persons  in  oflScial  life  has  been  growing 
less  in  the  United  States  under  our  partisan  spoils  system — 
whether  we  can  longer  afford  to  hand  over  the  offices,  as  the 
prizes  of  partisan  contests  and  the  perquisites  of  officials? 
And  especially  can  we  do  this  at  a  time  when  foreign  States, 
giving  new  vigor  to  the  means  by  which  they  have  distanced 
us  in  the  race,  are,  through  superior  officers  and  a  growing  com- 
merce, more  and  more  placing  us  at  a  disadvantage,  and  en- 
hancing the  distinction  and  the  dignity  of  the  kind  of  govern- 
ment which  they  represent,  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  ? 

To  execute  that  "solemn  trust"  of  official  life,  to  select 
the  best  men  for  public  places  in  the  light  of  the  highest  tests 
of  fitness,  to  secure  humble  citizenship  its  equal  right  to  office 
according  to  its  capacity,  to  thus  make  the  orderly  processes 
of  administration  in  themselves  a  daily  example  before  the 
eyes  of  the  people  of  the  justice  and  integrity  of  the  govern- 
ment and  a  powerful  force  in  aid  of  education  and  morality, 
it  was  first  necessary  that  the  king  should  surrender,  or  at 
least  forbear,  the  exercise  of  that  haughty  and  absolute  pre- 
rogative of  selecting  officers  at  his  pleasure  which  every  Eng- 
lish sovereign  had  wielded  from  the  foundation  of  the  mon- 
archy ;  that  dukes,  and  noblemen  of  every  class,  should  waive 
that  vast  influence  over  minor  appointments  which  for  ages 
had  been  in  great  part  the  patrimony  of  their  children  and 
the  strength  and  prestige  of  their  order  in  the  State  ;  that 
members  of  Parliament  should  surrender  a  patronage,  won 
in  contests  not  wholly  foreign  to  the  progress  of  liberty,  which 
for  more  than  a  century  had  been  held  as  the  unchallenged  per- 
quisite of  their  predecessors.  And  now  that  all  this  has  been 
done — that  the  old  feudal  and  class  barriers  have  been 
broken  down,  so  that  simple  manhood  and  womanhood,  un- 
obstructed by  monopolists,  stand  with  all  the  liberty  and 
equality  of  their  just  and  natural  relations  before  the  law  in 
the  mother  country  and  in  all  her  provinces — now  that  lier 
25 


382  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN'   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

politics  have  risen  practically  to  the  principles  npon  which 
our  fathers  framed  our  constitution — is  it  for  us,  upon  a  new 
construction  of  that  instniment  and  a  degrading  theory  foisted 
into  our  administration,  to  take  the  lead  in  presenting  republi- 
canism before  the  world  as  the  only  kind  of  government,  ac- 
cepted by  a  leading  nation,  whose  administration  is  held 
together  by  spoils,  and  whose  officers  require  patronage  as  a 
condition  of  serving  their  country  ?  I  am  unable  to  find  any 
reason,  in  the  sentiment  of  our  people  or  the  nature  of  our 
government,  why  the  members  of  the  American  Congress,  any 
more  than  the  members  of  the  British  Parliament,  need  pat- 
ronage and  spoils,  or  can  justify  the  use  of  them,  to  bring 
about  their  elections,  to  inspire  their  patriotism,  or  to  reward 
their  fidelity.  But  if  it  be  too  much  to  hope  that  congress- 
men will  ever  lead  in  a  reform,  the  fundamental  conditions 
of  which  are  that  they  surrender  the  patronage  they  have 
usurped  and  no  longer  violate  the  Constitution  by  leaving 
their  own  sphere  to  invade  the  Executive — may  we  not  at 
least  believe  that  they  wilL  not  again  refuse  appropriations  ? 
May  we  not  expect  that,  not  less  patriotic  than  members  of 
the  British  Parliament,  they  will  give  a  free  field,  and  vote 
the  necessary  moneys  for  that  systematic  reform  in  administra- 
tion which  seems  in  this  country  to  be,  as  plainly  as  in  Great 
Britain,  within  the  province  of  the  Executive  to  inaugurate  ? 
Another  of  the  great  and*  salutary  principles  of  the  new 
system,  which,  if  in  any  way  dependent  upon  the  form  of 
government,  would  seem  to  be  peculiarly  congenial  to  the 
more  liberal  institutions,  is  that  which  it  applies  to  promo- 
tions in  the  public  service.  It  requires  that  they  shall  not 
be  regardless  of  capacity  and  well  tested  fidelity.  They  must 
not  depend  on  partisan  services,  or  the  ambition  of  high 
officials,  or  the  interests  of  patronage  monopolists  or  of  poli- 
ticians of  any  sort.  When,  in  the  great  report  of  1860,  a 
distinguished  parliamentary  committee  (of  which  such  men 
as  the  present  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Bobert  Lowe, 
John  Bright,  Lord  Houghton,  and  Lord  Derby  were  mem- 
bers) declared  it  to  be  one  of  the  great  purposes  of  their 
appointment  "  to  encourage  industry  and  foster  merit  by 
teaching  all  public  servants  to  look  forward  to  promotion  ac- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN".         .  383 

cording  to  their  desert,  and  to  expect  the  highest  prizes  in 
the  service  if  they  can  qualify  themselves  for  them,'"  they 
touched  upon  a  subject  of  profound  importance,  which  vitally 
affects  fidelity,  efficiency,  and  economy  in  the  public  service. 
I  have  no  space  for  pointing  out  the  salutary  effects  which 
such  a  rule  faithfully  executed  in  our  service  would  be 
sure  to  produce.  What  industry,  and  consequently  what 
economy,  would  it  not  encourage  ?  What  worthy  ambition 
would  it  not  inspire  and  crown  with  honor  ?  What  imbecility 
and  indolence  would  it  not  rebuke  ?  What  injustice  and 
favoritism,  in  superiors,  would  it  not  arrest  ?  What  new  life 
and  aspiration  would  it  not  breathe  into  the  dreary,  servile  at- 
mosphere which  pervades  offices  and  departments,  precisely  in 
the  ratio  that  merit  is  without  recognized  claims  to  a  re- 
ward, that  the  reasons  for  advancement  are  shrouded  in  mys- 
tery, that  official  favoritism  and  partisan  interests  are  be- 
lieved to  detennine  the  position  and  consequently  the 
salaries  of  every  officer  in  the  service.  More  than  fifty  years 
have  elapsed  since  the  head  of  the  British  Treasury  set 
the  example,"  still  followed,  of  surrendering  patronage  in 
the  interest  of  merit,  in  the  matter  of  promotions,  in  that 
vast  department.  It  has  been  a  little  longer,  perhaps,  since 
an  American  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  for  the  first  time 
violated  the  rights  of  merit,  in  the  interest  of  patronage 
and  spoils,  in  his  great  office.  It  is  a  part  of  the  issue 
for  the  people  to  decide,  whether  we  are  to  continue 
the  dowTiward,  or  resume  the  upward  road,  in  the  future  ? 
Whether  those  holding  official  places  under  a  republic  are  to  ^ 
have  their  manhood  respected  and  their  merits  rewarded  as 
justly  and  surely  as  they  would  be  under  every  enlightened  i 
monarchy  in  the  world,  or  are  to  be  exposed  every  moment  to  ' 
the  perils  of  caprice  and  the  humiliations  of  unregulated  and 
irresponsible  authority  ?  Whether  every  hour  they  are  to  be  lia- 
able  to  be  taxed  without  Kmit,  and  removed  without  hearing  and 
without  cause  ?  Whether,  in  short,  those  in  our  public  service 
are  to  enjoy  the  rights  due  to  merit  and  the  liberty  of  speech  due 
to  freemen,  or  their  relations  are  to  have  more  of  the  character 

«  See  ante,  p.  220.  »  See  p.  156. 


384  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN, 

wliicli  belonged  to  feudal  dependents  centuries  ago  than  of 
that  which  befits  the  representatives  of  the  justice  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  foremost  republic  of  the  globe  ?  I  cannot  think 
that  any  principle  or  interest  of  our  government  stands  in  the 
way  of  promotions  being  so  regulated  that,  in  our  service,  as  in 
the  British  service  and  in  that  of  all  the  leading  States,  they 
shall  be  the  encouragement  and  the  reward  of  the  highest  vir- 
tues of  official  life.* 

There  is  but  one  other  great  principle  involved  in  the  re- 
form methods  to  which  reference  need  be  made.  It  is  that 
which  declares  the  patronage  and  spoils,  which  a  partisan  sys- 
tem places  at  the  disposal  of  parties,  are  not  essential  to  their 
greatest  usefulness,  but  rather  tend  to  degrade  and  enfeeble 
them.  It  should  be  no  matter  of  surprise  if,  in  a  generation 
reared  under  that  system  and  little  accustomed  to  consider 
the  attitude  and  influence  of  great  parties  when  acting 
independently  of  spoils,  there  should  be  found  not  a  few 
candid  persons  who  hesitate  over  that  principle,  and  do  not 
see  their  way  to  its  adoption.  An  adequate  presentation 
of  the  subject  would  require  a  whole  chapter,  and  it  is  not 
within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  comment  upon  our  own 
party  history.  Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  merit  sys- 
tem does  not  interfere  with  the  freedom  of  choice  on  party 
ground  in  any  popular  election  ;  that  it  leaves  unimpaired 
the  power  of  the  party  majority  to  control  the  enactment 
of  all  laws  ;  that  the  officers  its  majorities  have  elected  will 
have  the  right  of  instniction  and  control — according  to 
law,  and  for  the  purpose  of  executing  its  policy — of  the 
great  body  of  civil  servants  by  whom  the  laws  are  carried 
into  effect.  The  system  thus  gives  to  parties  the  broadest 
field  of  discretion  and  responsibility.  It  enables  the  will  of 
the  people  to  be  carried  into  effect  everywhere  from  the  high- 
est centres  of  political  action — from  the  Cabinet  and  Con- 

'  If  it  be  said  that  quite  as  many  of  those  in  our  public  service  violate 
official  propriety  and  diginity,  by  excessive  partisan  speech  and  action,  as 
by  servility  and  hypocrisy,  the  answer  is  that  both  forms  of  abuse,  are  the 
result  of  the  same  enslaving  system,  producing  opposite  effects  upon  differ, 
ent  natures.  A  tenure  dependent  upou  merit  would  equally  remedy  both 
forms  of  the  evil. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  385 

gress,  through  every  grade  of  office  and  every  form  of  juris- 
diction— to  the  Imniblest  public  servant  and  the  remotest  terri- 
tory. Whatever  parties  can  now  do  to  uphold  and  carry 
into  effect  a  sound  national  policy,  to  develop  and  express 
the  sentiments  of  the  people  upon  any  question  of  politics, 
to  invite  or  honorably  reward  patriotic  service  in  the  interest 
of  good  government,  to  secure  true  and  lionest  suffrage,  to  elect 
worthy  men  to  office,  to  rebuke  treachery  or  to  reform  abuses — 
all  these  things  they  can  do  as  freely  and  far  more  certainly 
under  the  merit  system  of  administration.  But  the  prostitu- 
tion of  the  functions  and  honors  of  the  State  for  partisan  ends, 
bribery  by  the  promise  of  offices,  the  huckstering  of  em- 
ployment on  the  public  works  for  votes,  feudal  tyranny  and 
pillage  in  the  form  of  arbitrary  taxation  of  official  salaries, 
despotic  patronage  in  the  hands  of  legislators,  all  the  forms 
of  partisan  interference  with  the  internal  affairs  of  depart- 
ments by  which  discipline  is  impaired,  economy  made  impo- 
sible,  promotions  are  degraded  into  favoritism,  and  unworthy 
henchmen  are  foisted  upon  the  public  treasury — these  abuses, 
one  and  all — that  system,  faithfully  enforced,  would  in  great 
measure  bring  to  an  end.  The  good  effects  of  this  theory 
of  parties  and  of  such  principles  in  the  execution  of  the  laws, 
not  only  within  the  departments,  but  upon  the  people  and 
upon  parties  themselves,  have  been  demonstrated  in  Great 
Britain  by  an  amount  of  evidence  which  has  there  placed  the 
subject  beyond  discussion.  The  question  is,  whether  there  is 
any  reason  why  similar  effects  would  not  flow  from  the  same 
principles  applied  to  our  politics  ?  In  other  words,  is  it  not 
practicable  for  great  parties  in  a  republic  to  express  the  will 
of  the  people  in  regard  to  public  affaii^s  and  to  serve  the  na- 
tion, as  justly  and  efficiently  as  in  a  monarchy,  without  any 
more  reliance  upon  corruption,  patronage,  and  spoils  ?  The 
same  history  which  has  sho^vn  us  that  nUers  and  parties,  in 
an  old  monarchy,  long  ago  devised  and  put  in  practice,  in 
forms  more  aggravated  than  we  have  ever  allowed,  the  varied 
kinds  of  proscriptions,  frauds,  and  prostitution  known  in  our 
politics,  and  others  yet  more  flagitious — which  has  shown  us 
how  parties  and  the  partisan  system  began  and  the  uses  to 
which  every  variety  of  spoils  and  patronage  may  be  put — has 


38-6  CIVIL   SEE  VICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

also  sliown  the  inlicrent  inability  of  these  devices  of  corruption 
to  sustain  a  party  or  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  higher 
sentiment  in  a  free  State.  It  has  further  shown  us  how  such 
abuses  fell  before  the  rising  intelligence  of  an  enlightened 
people.  Upon  a  broad,  historical  review  of  the  course  of 
British  affairs,  Ilallam  declares  that  "government  may  safely 
rely  on  the  reputation  justly  due  to  it  ;"  and  from  the 
deepest  experience  of  practical  politics,  Lord  Granville  de- 
clared in  Parliament,  in  1854,  "  that  the  time  for  a  system  of 
government  by  patronage  was  gone  by, ' '  lie  also  laid  down 
the  rule  ' '  that  the  true  policy  of  a  government  was  in  appeal- 
ing to  the  good  sense  and  intelligence  of  the  large  classes  of 
the  community, ' '  '  The  appeal  here  meant  was  an  appeal  to 
the  people  to  come  forward  and  show  themselves  qualified  for 
office  without  resorting  to  partisan  coercions  to  compel  its 
bestowal.  Is  not  this  appeal  based  on  a  faith  and  a  policy 
upon  which  a  republic  as  consistently  and  safely  as  a  mon- 
archy may  act  ?  "Were  not  these  the  theories  of  our  early 
statesmen,  and  are  they  not  in  the  spirit  of  our  constitution 
and  our  social  life  ?  "When,  in  royal  old  England,  feudalism 
and  patronage  and  privilege  have  been  laid  so  low,  by  the 
people's  demand  of  common  justice  at  the  gates  of  office,  that 
no  man  without  the  prescribed  qualifications  can  pass  those 
gates,  though  having  in  his  veins  the  blood  of  all  the  How- 
ards and  at  his  back  the  influence  of  the  whole  bench  of 
bishops  and  all  the  coronets  that  glitter  on  the  heads  of  noble- 
men,— is  that  the  time  for  this  young  nation  of  republican 
freemen  to  make  a  privileged  class  of  its  politicians,  and  feu- 
dal lords  of  its  officials  and  partisan  leaders,  without  whose 
consent,  no  man,  however  meritorious,  can  enter  the  public 
service  of  his  country  ?  Are  we  not  as  competent  to  make  a 
reform,  in  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  and  according  to  the 
better  precedents  of  our  history,  as  the  English  people  were 

"The  recent  utterances  of  leading  statesmen  and  thinkers  in  England 
regarding  the  submission  of  questions  of  fundamental  policy  to  a  fairly 
educated  people,  as  compared  with  the  submissions  of  such  questions 
simply  to  the  most  highly  educated  classes,  are  very  striking."  Address  of 
Hon.  Andrew  D.  White  on  Education  and  Political  Science.  February, 
1879. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN.  387 

to  make  the  same  reform,  wliicli  took  awaj  privileges  as  old 
as  civilization  in  Great  Britain  and  undermined  theories  and 
classes  which  every  former  generation  had  cherished  ?  Con- 
sider further  what  is  involved  in  the  assumption  that  it  is 
easier  under  a  monarchy  than  under  a  republic — more  'in 
harmony  with  the  political  relations  of  the  subjects  of  a 
king — for  a  party  to  forbear  the  use  of  proscription  and 
corruption  in  carrying  forward  its  policy.  These  may  be 
accepted  as  the  principal  reasons  why  men  act  together  in 
parties  :  1.  Patriotic  devotion  to  the  form  of  government 
or  to  the  general  welfare,  which  the  party  is  believed  to 
promote.  2.  Interest  in  the  success  of  a  particular  measure 
or  policy.  3.  Personal  ambition  for  office  or  power.  4.  Sub- 
serviency to  the  dominant  public  opinion.  5.  Love  of  con- 
tention, excitement,  and  mere  pride  of  victory.  .6.  Selfish 
expectation  of  direct  personal  gains.  It  is  plain  that  it 
is  only  the  latter  and  lower  class  of  motives  for  acting 
with  a  party  which  would  be  weakened  by  the  diminution 
of  the  bribes  which  it  can  hold  out  and  the  spoils  which  it 
can  distribute.  If  it  be  true,  therefore,  that  the  application 
of  the  principle  we  are  considering  would  impair  the  support 
given  to  parties  in  a  republic  more  than  it  would  in  a  mon- 
archy, it  must  be  because  the  corrupt  elements  are  relatively 
stronger  and  the  patriotic  elements  relatively  weaker  in  the 
former  than  in  the  latter.  Royalty,  class  distinction,  aristo- 
cratic privileges  must,  consequently,  be  greater  inspirations  to 
patriotism  and  self-sacrifice  than  liberty,  equality,  common 
rights,  or  any  thing  upon  which  republican  institutions  are 
founded.  If  w.e  hold  such  views,  we  may,  with  some  con- 
sistency, fear  that  our  parties  will  fall  to  pieces,  and  that 
citizens  of  a  republic  will  refuse  to  serve  their  country, 
unless  party  managers  are  at  liberty  to  pillage  the  officials  in 
order  to  supply  their  treasuries,  and  to  practice  proscription 
and  make  merchandise  of  office  in  order  to  reward  their  hench- 
men. But,  in  that  event,  let  us  cease  our  grandiloquent  talk 
about  "  the  oppressed  and  downtrodden  masses  in  the  effete 
monarchies  of  the  Old  "World,"  and  about  the  people's  glo- 
rious love  of  freedom  and  equality  on  our  happy  shores.  Let 
us  frankly  admit  that  monarchy  is  the  government  most  loved 


388  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

and  best  served  by  the  people — the  government  which  alone 
develops  a  truly  self-sacrificing  patriotism — while  a  republic 
can  command  the  services  of  its  citizens  only  to  the  extent 
that  they  are  bribed  and  paid  by  offices  and  spoils.  If  such 
views  are  well  founded,  let  us  also  be  prepared  for  the  gradual 
decadence  of  repubhcan  States.  For,  what  is  more  certain,  in 
the  great  international  rivalry  of  governments  and  institutions, 
than  that  those  will  triumph  which  most  attract  to  their  sup- 
port the  virtues  and  liigher  sentiments  of  the  people.  It  can 
only  be  in  a  world  surrendered  to  chance,  or  under  a  civiliza- 
tion hastening  to  decay,  that  a  political  system  which  makes 
its  appeal  to  the  baser  motives  of  men  can  win  the  foremost 
places  in  the  competition  of  nations. 

I  have  no  space  for  more  than  an  allusion  to  the  fact  that, 
if  the  taking  of  the  bribery  and  corruption  fund  out  of  party 
poHtics  should  result  in  the  more  venal  and  rowdyish  voters 
keej)ing  away  from  the  polls — if  a  class  of  mercenary  manipu- 
lators should  not  be  so  much  busied  in  caucusses  and  conven- 
tions— British  experience  shows  us  that  worthier  citizens,  which 
a  corrupt  system  repels,  will  more  than  fill  any  places  left 
vacant.  It  also  shows  us  that  such  citizens,  for  which  a  con- 
test of  principles  has  attractions,  will  give  more  virtue  and 
ability  to  political  leadership  than  can  ever  be  secured  under 
the  system  we  tolerate. 

V.  Dismissing  the  questions  of  principle  involved  in  the 
new  system,  we  come  to  the  practical  effects  w^iich  would  be 
likely  to  attend  its  adoption.  It  not  being  w^ithin  the  scope  of 
this  work  to  set  forth  the  abuses  in  our  administration,  no  at- 
.  tempt  will  be  made  to  do  more  than  indicate,  in  broad  outline, 
the  changes  the  new  system  would  bring  about.  They  have 
been  largely  suggested  already,  and  most  of  them  are  so  plainly 
deducible  from  the  explanations  made  concerning  the  British 
departments,'  that  not  much  need  be  added.  Civil  service 
reform,  though  in  its  indirect  effects  a  powerful  aid  to.  educa- 
tion, has  for  its  more  direct  object  the  utilization,  more  effec- 
tively for  the  public  good,  of  the  virtue  and  intelligence 
already  existing.     But,  wdth   whatever   success   this   may  be 

'  See  especially  Chap.  30.  / 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITMN.  389 

done,  we  may  well  believe  that  need  will  always  exist  in 
our  politics  for  giving  the  utmost  efficiency  to  all  influences 
which  directly  mould  character  for  higher  ends.  If  faith  in 
the  better  sentiments  is  an  element  in  all  true  statesmanship, 
anticipations  of  any  sudden  or  absolute  purification  of  politics 
are  evidences  of  weakness  and  inexperience.  Great  reforms  ^ 
are  the  slow  growth  of  years. 

The  most  important  change  which  the  merit  system  would  at 
once  bring  about  would  be  the  breaking  up  of  a  pervading  and 
pernicious  monopoly,  now  held  by  party  managers,  by  jobbers 
in  politics,  and  by  office-holders  possessing  (or  usurping)  the  ap- 
pointing power,  which  everywhere  obtrudes  itself  between  the 
people  and  all  nominations  for  office  and  all  public  employment. 
This  monopoly  everywhere,  in  the  departments  and  offices  of 
the  cities,  of  the  States,  and  of  the  nation  alike,  imposes  condi- 
tions in  the  interests  of  personal  gain  or  partisan  supremacy — 
and  largely  irrespective  of  personal  worth — upon  nearly  every 
apphcant  for  a  public  position.  All  the  ways  to  offices  and 
places,  under  the  partisan  spoils  system,  are  through  the 
narrow  gates  held  by  this  vast  monopoly,  at  which  there  is  a 
degrading,  secret,  and  corrupt  competition  of  influence,  to 
which  these  gates  are  opened.  The  surrender  of  indepen- 
dence and  of  liberty  to  serve  the  people  faithfully  are  the 
toll.  Free,  public  examinations,  directed  to  subjects  of  essen- 
tial knowledge  for  the  public  work,  and  open  competitions  of 
merit,  to  which  no  officer,  party,  or  monopolist  could  prescribe 
the  conditions  of  entry,  would  break  up  both  this  monopoly  and 
the  great  trade  in  patronage  and  spoils.  They  would  allow 
citizens  a  real  freedom  and  equality  in  presenting  their  claims 
for  office.  They  would  deprive  intrigue  and  partisan  influence 
of  their  controlling  power  in  politics.  Better  still,  they  would 
exhibit  the  methods  of  exercising  the  appointing  power  before 
the  minds  of  the  people  in  an  aspect  of  justice  and  purity 
which  would  command  their  confidence  and  respect.  I^o  longer 
affiliated  with  intrigue,  manipulation,  and  mere  influence, 
that  power  would  stand  in  alliance  with  industry,  education 
and  personal  worth.  It  would  be  exercised  without  conceal- 
ment. It  would  appear  to  the  people  as  based  on  principle,  as 
intended  to  reward  capacity  and  character,  as  making  ability  to 


390  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

discharge  the  duties  of  an  office  an  essential  condition  of  secur- 
ing it.  Where  now  there  is  secrecy,  intrigue,  uncertainty,  and 
consequently  suspicion,  distrust  and  ignorance,  pervading  and 
darkening  all  the  approaches  and  purlieus  of  office,  and  a  dis- 
orderly contention,  in  large  measure  only  between  the  venal  and 
unscrupulous  forces  of  politics,  there  would  be  openness  of  pro- 
cedure and  complete  publicity  of  method.  In  place  of  the 
secret  contests  of  influence,  there  would  be  a  public  competi- 
tion and  a  rivalry  in  presenting  in  the  highest  degree  those 
qualifications  needed  in  official  places — character  that  could  not 
be  impeached — attainments  that  are  in  themselves  evidence  of 
virtuous  industry.  The  final  decision  of  tlie  appointing  offi- 
cers— which  under  the  spoils  system  is  based,  so  generally,  on 
the  secret  preponderance  of  menace  and  persuasion  in  the 
interest  of  a  motley  throng  of  applicants — would,  under  the 
new  system,  be  required  to  be  made  as  between  only  a  few  of 
the  more  worthy  persons  to  whom  competition  had  reduced 
the  many  applicants.  And  tliat  decision  would  necessarily 
have  to  stand  upon  public  records,  in  writing,  concerning  the 
character  and  capacity  of  each  successful  competitor,  which 
would  remain  as  abiding  evidence  of  the  justice  or  injustice 
of  the  final  selection.' 

As  a  natural  consequence  of  arresting  partisan  control  of 
nominations  and  of  subordinate  administration  generally,  the 
main  causes  would  cease  to  exist  which  now  hold  toerether  so 
many  active  and  mercenary  cliques  and  ' '  rings  ' '  in  our  poli- 
tics. Without  the  power  and  the  profit  of  such  nominations 
and  control,  and  without  the  ability  to  collect  party  assess- 
ments any  longer,  their  business  and  means  of  support  would 
come  to  an  end  together.  They  do  not  exist  by  reason  of  any 
patriotic  interest  in  public  affairs,  nor  do  they  contribute  to 
any  healthy  activity  or  to  the  public  enlightenment.  It  is 
these  combinations,  managed  by  men  of  low  moral  tone  and 
mercenary  aims,  and  their  domineering  influence  upon  elec- 
tions which   have  driven  worthy  men   from   the   polls   and 

'  For  example,  the  record  of  each  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  appli- 
cants who  have  l)een  examined  under  the  British  Civil  Service  Commission, 
has  been  preserved  ;  and  the  justice  of  every  appointment  made  from  among 
them  could  be  verified  to-day  as  well  as  at  the  date  of  the  examination. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  391 

brouglit  politics  into  disgrace.  When  they  are  broken  up,  we 
shall  have  left  only  that  legitimate  popular  action  which 
directly  concerns  officers  elected  by  the  people  and  the  princi- 
ples by  which  the  great  parties  may  be  divided. 

In  presidential  elections,  the  introduction  of  the  merit  sys- 
tem would  bring  about  changes  too  manifold  and  profound  for 
description  here.  These  elections  would  become  true  national 
contests,  in  M^hich  little  beyond  the  personal  worth  of  candi- 
dates and  the  principles  and  the  policies  of  the  rival  parties 
would  be  involved.  The  filling  of  a  very  few  high  places 
would  depend  on  the  rssult ;  but  the  innumerable  side  issues  of 
self-seeking  and  partisanship  could  no  longer  be  made  to  trail 
the  whole  canvass  in  corruption.  Those  within  the  departments 
and  offices  would  have  the  full  liberty  of  citizens  to  express  . 
their  opinions  and  to  vote.  They  would  not  be  forced,  by 
fears  of  arhltrary  rernoval,  to  prostitute  their  authority,  or 
waste  time  needed  in  the  public  service,  upon  the  servile 
work  of  partisan  politics.  They  would  no  longer  be  com- 
pelled to  invade  the  freedom  of  elections  as  a  condition 
of  holding  their  own  places.  Among  the  people  at  large, 
every  question  of  principle,  the  devotion  inspired  by  patriot- 
ism, the  earnestness  prompted  by  a  cause  believed  to  be 
righteous,  whatever  zeal  comes  from  a  true  party  spirit, 
and  every  honest  interest  that  can  be  involved  in  political  con- 
tests, would  have  a  fair  and  open  field.  Such  motives  of 
action  would  be  all  the  more  effective  in  giving  vigor  to  speech 
and  dra^ving  honest  voters  to  the  polls,  because  innumerable 
issues  of  corruption  would  have  disappeared.  They  would  be 
all  the  more  powerful  for  good,  because  the  expectations  and 
intrigues  of  a  million  of  claimants  for  a  hundred  thousand 
offices  and  places  would  not  be  involved,  and  the  people 
would  feel  that  the  great  question  to  be  settled  was  not  which 
party  should  capture  the  offices,  but  what  policy  should  guide 
the  nation. 

The  same  causes  which,  by  giving  official  places  to  merit, 
would  deprive  officers  and  party  leaders  of  their  irresponsible 
control  of  selections  and  appointments,  would  also  make  jjolit- 
ical  leadership  and  official  hfe  less  attractive  to  self-seeking 
and  corrupt  men.    Those  causes  would  also  make  public  affairs 


392  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITALN". 

far  more  attract! v^e  to  all  patriotic  and  high-minded  citizens. 
It  has  been  one  of  the  most  lamentable  tendencies  of  our  spoils 
system  to  hand  over  political  leadership  and  office  to  a  class  of 
persons  quite  inferior  to  the  men  who  held  such  positions  in 
the  earlier  years  of  the  government.  As  a  natural  result,  ,we 
have  seen  a  class  of  politicians  become  powerful  in  high 
places,  who  have  not  taken  (and  who  by  nature  are  not 
qualified  to  take)  any  large  part  in  the  social  and  educational 
life  of  the  people.  Politics  have  tended  more  and  more  to 
become  a  trade,  or  separate  occupation.  High  character  and 
capacity  have  become  disassociated  from  public  life  in  the 
popular  mind.  We  see  small  bands  of  trained  partisans,  who, 
while  servile  to  officials,  yet  domineer  over  the  great  parties. 
British  experience  warrants  the  belief  that  rigid  tests  of  merit, 
enforced  against  every  applicant  for  office,  will  aid  powerfully 
in  restoring  the  old  sympatliy  and  union  between  the  politics 
and  the  ability  and  worth  of  the  nation.  How  can  we  expect 
political  morality  to  improve  under  a  system  which  makes  the 
higher  officers  the  most  interested  in  preserving  existing 
abuses  at  the  same  time  that  it  surrenders  to  them  ample 
power  for  continuing  these  abuses  at  their  pleasure  ? 

It  requires  some  effort  of  the  imagination  to  get  a  clear  idea 
of  the  manifold  effects  in  detail — of  the  profound  influences 
upon  the  relations  of  citizens  to  parties  and  to  office — of  the 
stimulus  to  education  and  to  indej)endent,  manly  thought, 
speech,  and  action — which  such  an  exchange  of  systems  would 
cause.  Where  now  we  see  all  thought,  all  hope,  all  influence, 
all  effort,  concentrated  ujDon  partisan  cliques,  upon  jobbers  in 
influence,  upon  official  and  unofficial  patronage-mongers,  upon 
what  good-natured  citizens  may  be  unduly  persuaded  to  rec- 
ommend in  aid  of  an  unworthy  office-seeker,  henchman,  or 
dependent — we  should  see  exertions  to  educate  one's  self  up 
to  the  standards  needed  for  official  duty,  concern  to  keep  one's 
character  above  danger  of  attack  at  a  public  competition,  en- 
couragement to  independence  in  politics,  study  of  whatever 
would  contribute  to  the  acquirement  of  a  just  distinction  for 
ability  and  efficiency  in  the  discharge  of  official  duty,  upon 
which  all  promotion  would  depend.  Witli  the  greater  ability 
and  higher  character  which   such  improved  methods  would 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  393 

bring  into  the  public  service,  its  self-respect  and  its  public  es- 
timation could  not  fail  to  be  enhanced. '     Our  politics  would 

«  tend  to  rise  from  the  degradation  in  which  vicious  and  corrupt 
methods  have  involved  them,  and  to  take  the  position  befit- 
ting a  science  which  deals  with  the  greatest  affairs  of  a  nation 
and  the  profoundest  human  interest  of  a  people. 

Some  brief  explanations  will  give  definiteness  to  these  gen- 
eral statements  and  to  the  practical  methods  of  the  new 
system.  The  secretaries,  the  foreign  ministers,  the  judges, 
and  some  other  high  officers  will,  it  may  be  assumed,  always 
be  appointed  without  examination  or  competition.  In  deal- 
ing with  this  limited  number  of  conspicuous  places,  it- 
would  be  practicable  for  the  President  to  become  well  in- 
formed of  the  qualifications  of  the  candidates,  and  for  the 
people  to  take  notice  of  his  action  in  each  case.  And  therefore 
examinations  would  be  no  more  necessary  than  they  would  be 
appropriate  for  such  selections.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
official  scale,  there  would  be  the  small  postmasters,  numer- 
ous isolated  officials,  and  the  clerks  in  various  small  offices,  as 
to  which  there  would  probably  be  no  examinations,  or  only 
those  of  a  general  character,  conducted  in  a  less  formal  man- 
ner and  without  competition."  Between  these  extremes,  there 
would  be  the  great  body  of  the  subordinate  officers,  from^O^^:. 
000  to  60,000,  perhaps,  in  all,  to  whom  examinations  and  (gen- 
erally) competition  would  extend.  It  is  the  persons  who  fill 
these  offices  who  would  be  brought  within  the  range  of  ap- 

^  propriate  tests  of  qualification  and  rules  of  procedure.  It  is 
in  connection  with  efforts  to  obtain  these  offices  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  deception,  the  official  and  partisan  intrigue, 
the  fraud  and  corruption  of  our  politics  take  place.  The  hopes 
and  the  profits  of  success  are  sufficient  to  keep  in  a  state  of 
feverish  and  mercenary  activity  innumerable  bodies  of  politi- 
cians who  render  no  real  service  to  the  people,  and  who,  but 

'  See  Letter  of  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  on  this  point,  Appendix  A. 

'  It  is  very  plain  that  the  need  of  competition  in  any  office  or  department 
depends,  in  large  measure,  upon  the  number  of  clerks  being  too  great  for 
the  head  of  the  office  to  know  the  merits  of  each  applicant  for  appointment 
and  promotion,  and  upon  the  amount  of  partisan  and  other  corrupt  pres- 
sure applied  for  foisting  unworthy  persons  into  its  official  places. 


394  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

for  cliances  of  corrupt  gain,  would  never  take  any  active  part 
in  public  affairs. 

A  general  Civil  Service  Board  would  supervise  the  examina- 
tions, to  be  conducted  in  convenient  parts  of  the  Union  upon  a 
uniform  plan.  Those  competitors  found  worthy  would  be 
certified  to  local  officers  and  to  the  great  departments  at 
Washington,  so  as  at  all  times  to  enable  selections  to  be  made 
for  appointments  with  due  reference  both  to  the  just  claims 
of  every  section  and  to  the  needs  of  every  office.'  From  the 
persons  thus  shown  to  be  qualified,  the  President  and  the 
heads  of  departments  at  Washington,  as  well  as  officers  having 
the  right  of  nomination  in  local  offices,  would  readily  make  their 
selections  without  interference  from  politicians,  without  agita- 
tion of  the  community,  and  without  disturbance  of  the  business 
of  congress  or  of  legislatures.  The  whole  duty  and  responsibility 
would  in  practice,  as  they  do  in  the  theory  of  the  constitution, 
rest  with  the  executive  department  to  which  they  relate.  That- 
department  would  therefore  be  relieved  of  the  demoralizing 
necessity  of  surrendering  to,  or  of  deciding  between,  any 
of  the  rival  claims  of  factions  or  of  favorites  ;  and  it  would  no 
longer  be  besieged  by  an  army  of  importunate  office-seekers, 
backed  by  high  officials  and  influential  politicians  of  every 
sort.  The  executive  would  be,  for  the  first  time  in  this  gener- 
ation, at  liberty  to  give  the  attention  needed  for  the  proper 
working  of  the  departments.  It  would  also  be  ])ossible  to 
separate  executive  affairs  from  those  legislative  questions  with 
which  congressional  patronage  has  so  disastrously  embroiled 
them. 

Examinations  and  competitions  would  not  only  supply  wor- 
thy persons  from  whom  appointments  could  at  all  times  be 
readily  and  safely  made,  but  would  be  a  part  of  a  system  which 
would  exclude  appointments  from  persons  not  thus  shown  to 
be  competent.  It  would  therefore  have  as  salutary  an  effect 
upon  the  legislative  department  as  upon  the  executive.  Those 
candidates  for  Congress  who  might  be  capable  of  such  a  pros- 

'  The  practicability  of  tliis  method  was  being  tested  with  success,  when 
Congress  deserted  the  refoi-m  policy  under  President  Grant  ;  and  it  has  been 
found  satisfactory,  after  a  trial  of  more  than  twenty-five  years,  in  Great 
Britain. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  395 

titution,  having  no  longer  power  to  give  places  in  custom- 
houses or  other  public  offices,  could  no  more  pledge  and  barter 
them  with  effect  for  votes,  speeches,  or  influence,  iu  aid  of 
their  elections.  They  would  have  to  go  before  the  people  on 
the  policy  of  their  party  and  their  own  worth  as  men.  Many 
great  fountains  of  corruption  would  thus  be  closed.  The  most 
unscrupulous  candidates  would  no  longer  be  able  to  gain  ad- 
vantages over  the  best,  in  the  ratio  of  the  numbers  they  bribed 
or  deceived  by  corrupt  promises  of  offices  and  places.  Kor 
would  the  effects  be  less  salutary  after  members  of  congress 
had  reached  Washington.  For  there,  also,  they  would  be 
without  power  to  barter  in  patronage,  and  without  opportu- 
nity for  fawning  or  threatening  successfully  in  the  depart- 
ments, in  aid  of  their  supporters  or  themselves.  But  they 
would  be  left  free,  in  the  dignity  of  their  high  stations,  and 
able,  in  a  manly  and  independent  manner,  to  discharge  their 
only  function — the  high  function  of  making  laws  for  a  great 
nation.  They  might  find  time  for  acting  upon  the  thousands 
of  bills  that  year  after  year  remain  upon  their  tables,  and  for 
dealing  thoughtfully  with  the  great  interests  of  the  nation 
which  are  now  neglected.  No  longer  liable  to  be  charged, 
however  unjustly,  with  prostituting  duty  to  patronage,  they 
would  be  exalted  in  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  people 
and  of  each  other. 

It  ought,  however,  to  be  clearly  perceived  that  it  does  not 
follow  (because  the  members  of  the  legislature  are  to  give  up 
their  usurped  patronage  and  lose  their  corrupt  influence),  that 
the  executive  would  be  aggrandized  under  the  new  system.  Such 
would  not  be  the  fact.  Good  citizens  would  be  the  only  gain- 
ers. The  executive  would  be  rather  limited  in  its  arbitrary 
discretion — curtailed  in  opportunities  to  act  selfishly.  For  it 
would  be  required  to  appoint  only  from  the  most  worthy 
among  the  people,  as  shown  by  the  examinations.  It  would, 
therefore,  be  only  justice  and  the  sanctions  of  official  fidelity, 
which  would  be  made  stronger,  and  only  a  selfish  and  capricious 
favoritism  which  would  be  made  weaker.  Justice  would  ad- 
vance upon  official  discretion  to  do  wrong  and  hmit  its  range. 
The  President,  not  less  than  members  of  Congress  and  other 
high  officials,  would  be  compelled  to  surrender  his  secret  and 


396  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN". 

unpatriotic  favoritism.  Tlie  new  system  is  decentralizing. 
It  is  democratic  and  discriminating  to  the  last  degree.  It  not. 
only  says  to  every  official,  it  is  your  duty  to  appoint  tlie  fittest 
man,  but,  in  a  measure,  it  compels  him  to  do  so.  It  not  only 
takes  away  the  opportunity  of  selecting  the  unworthy,  but  it 
enables  the  people,  by  their  own  acts,  to  determine  the  condi- 
tions of  a  proper  choice  from  among  those  most  competent. 
In  other  words,  the  examinations,  by  showing  who  are  the  most 
worthy,  put  limits  to  the  arbitrary  discretion  of  nominating 
the  unworthy.  To  that  extent,  the  people  themselves  would 
aid  the  executive  in  doing  its  duty. 

British  statesmen  speak  of  the  position  of  members  of 
Parliament  under  the  old  system  as  "a  double  bondage 
from  which  they  were  at  once  liberated  when  the  junior 
appointments  were  opened  to  competition  ;'"  and  there 
is  abundant  evidence  that  such  a  relief  would  not  be  less 
welcome  to  all  high-toned  members  of  Congress  than  it  was 
to  all  high-toned  members  of  Parliament.''  It  is  but  justice 
to  believe  that  most  members  of  Congress,  who  consent  to  per- 
form the  ignominious  and  demoralizing  work  of  ofiice  brokers 
and  patronage-mongers,  do  so  only  because,  not  having 
studied  the  methods  by  which  the  legislators  of  other  great 
nations  have  risen  above  such  servility,  they  have  accepted  an 
inherited  usage  as  a  public  necessity.     They  would,  undoubt- 

'  See  Appendix  A,  Letter  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan. 

*  In  a  debate  in  the  House,  in  1869,  a  Representative  declared  that  "  it  is  no 
more  a  part  of  a  Representative's  duty  to  seek  and  dispose  of  executive  offi- 
ces than  to  solicit  pardons  for  traitors  or  condemned  criminals. 
If,  as  a  matter  of  personal  or  political  favor,  he  goes  to  the  State  Depart- 
ment to  beg  a  consulate,  or  perhaps  something  higher,  .  .  .  he  is  made 
to  feel  .  .  .  that  he  surrenders  his  independence  when  he  accepts  the 
gift ;"  and  in  a  debate  in  1870,  another  member  used  this  language  :  "  I  ap- 
peal to  the  members  of  the  House,  if  it  is  not  one  of  the  greatest  curses  of 
the  position  of  a  member  of  Congress  that  there  are  continual  demands  made 
on  his  time  and  patience  l)y  persons  whom  it  is  utterly  impossible  for  him 
to  satisfy,  who  demand  that  he  shall  secure  office  for  them.  The  enemies 
we  make  are  dissappointed  office-seekers  almost  exclusively."  Report  U.  9. 
Civil  Service  Commission,  April,  1874,  pp.  17  and  18.  Still,  the  people  will, 
doubtless,  be  more  impressed  with  the  injustice  of  burdens  thus  cruelly  put 
upon  members  of  Congress,  if  they  shall  more  generally  manifest  their 
courage  and  patriotism  by  speaking  out  plainly  against  them,  and  by  vigor- 
ous efforts  to  throw  them  off. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN,  397 

edly,  welcome  a  reform  which  would  as  much  enlarge  their 
own  freedom  as  It  would  their  ability  to  serve  the  peo23le  with 
advantage.  And  if  there  shall  be  members  deaf  to  the  calls  of 
duty  and  patriotism,  they  have  only  to  act  on  the  lessons  of 
partisan  selfishness.  In  1871,  Vice-President  Wilson  declared 
in  the  Senate  (having  reference  to  the  patronage  of  represen- 
tatives), that  "looking  over  the  country  this  year,  and  I  have 
taken  some  little  pains  to  learn  the  facts,  I  believe  that  a  large 
majority  of  the  districts  lost  to  the  administration  party  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  were  lost  on  account  of  bad  appoint- 
ments made  in  the  districts,  and  by  the  disappointment  of  men 
who  were  turned  out  of  office  or  wanted  to  get  into  office. ' ' ' 

We  may  also  see  in  these  facts  how  such  changes  would  con- 
tribute not  less  to  keeping  the  great  departments  within  their 
constitutional  spheres  of  duty — and  therefore  to  the  counterpoise 
and  stability  of  the  government  itself — than  they  would  to 
the  dignity  and  manhood  of  official  life  and  to  the  chances 
of  men  of  a  scrupulous  sense  of  honor  at  the  elections. 

I  have  no  space  to  explain — if  it  be  not  too  clear  for  explana- 
tion— that  the  same  methods  and  principles  are  as  appli- 
cable to  governors  and  members  of  the  legislature,  and 
to  mayors  and  aldermen  of  cities,  in  the  exercise  of  the 
appointing  power,  as  they  are  to  the  President  and  to  mem- 
bers of  Congress.  It  needs  but  little  reflection  to  comprehend 
what  a  mass  of  corruption  and  intrigue  would  be  suppressed, 
and  what  superior  officers.  State  and  municipal,  might  be 
secured,  by  enforcing  examinations  for  fitness  and  by  selecting, 
for  the  subordinate  officials  of  the  States  and  the  cities,  only 
those  who  should  win  in  competition.  And  what  encourage- 
ment would  not  be  given  to  fidelity  and  efficiency  by  providing 
that  all  but  the  very  highest  positions  should  be  filled  by  pro- 
motions from  the  lower  places  ?  The  first  city  that  shall  put  in 
practice  rigid  and  honest  examinations  and  competitions  of 
character  and  qualifications  for  admission  to  its  clerkships, 
and  require  the  higher  places  (below  that  of  mayor  and 
perhaps  two  or  three  other  officers)  to  be  filled  by  competitive 
promotions  from  among  the  subordinates,  will  make  an  era  in 

'  Report  U.  S.  Civil  Serviee  Commission,  April,  1874,  p.  74. 
26 


398  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

city  affairs.  It  will  be  equally  salutary  in  reducing  expenses, 
in  suppressing  a  demoralizing  and  partisan  intermeddling, 
and  in  giving  respectability  and  efficiency  to  municipal  admin- 
istration. Who  can  estimate  tlie  advantage  of  suppressing  tlie 
useless  and  pernicious  partisan  machinery  now  operated  in  our 
municipalities,  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  local  nomina- 
tions and  officials  in  the  interest  of  patronage  and  spoils  ?  And 
can  it  be  doubted  that  open  competition  would  cause  that  sup- 
pression ?  That  municipal  government  in  Great  Britain  is 
more  efficient  and  less  affected  by  official  corruption  than  in 
the  United  States,  is  well  known.  We  have  only  to  refer  to 
facts  already  cited  to  learn  the  salutary  effect  of  such  methods 
of  reform  in  her  cities.' 

In  the  light  of  these  explanations,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
point  out  how  naturally  and  inevitably  the  administration  of 
our  custom-houses  and  post-offices  would  rise  above  servility  to 
partisan  interests,  upon  the  enforcement  of  a  merit  system 
of  office.  The  bands  of  manipulators,  who  so  generally  domi- 
nate them,  would  lose  their  control  of  nominations,  removals, 
and  promotions,  and  with  it  the  power  to  levy  party  assessment. 
Their  occupation  and  their  income  would  be  gone.  Appoint- 
ments, promotions,  and  removals  would  cease  to  be  mere  ap- 
pendages to  popular  elections,  and  would  go  on  as  a  part  of  an 
orderly  procedure,  managed  within  the  offices  and  not  in  the 
partisan  caucuses  or  cliques.  Neither  senators  nor  represen- 
tatives, neither  governors  nor  other  State  officers,  would  be 
disturbed  by  the  ordinary  administrative  duties,  or  be  able  to 
meddle  effectively  with  their  due  performance.  Unless  the 
experience  of  all  other  nations  should  be  belied,  better  admin- 
istration and  economy  would  soon  give  the  new  system  a  strong 
hold  upon  the  confidence  of  the  people."  I  am  convinced 
there  is  no  need  that  the  places  in  our  revenue  or  postal 
administration  should  be  the  prizes  of  partisan  politics,  or 
that  the  public  buildings  should  be  the  fortresses  of  the 
dominant  party.  For  a  whole  generation,  there  has  been 
little  more  politics  in  a  British  custom-house,  or  in  the  cus- 

'  Sec  ante,  pp.  157  and  158. 

^  See  Letter  Sir  Charles  Trevelj^an.     Appendix  A. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  399 

tom-lioi7ses  of  any  leading  nation  in  Europe,  than  in  courts 
or  colleges.  And  it  is  very  plain  that  no  political  principles 
and  no  conditions  appropriate  for  the  interference  of  parties 
are  involved  in  the  ministerial  business  of  collecting  the  reve- 
nues according  to  law  and  the  instructions  of  the  Secretarv\ 
The  duty  and  the  discretion  are  the  same,  to  whatever  party 
the  collector  belongs.  He  has,  in  the  view  of  the  constitution, 
and  should  have  in  fact,  no  control  over  th^  policy  of  the  ad- 
ministration. It  is  only  our  partisan  spoils  system,  the  like  of 
which  has  not  been  tolerated  by  any  other  great  nation  for  a 
century,  which  has  prostituted  the  revenue  and  postal  services 
and  made  them  the  sources  of  scandals  which  are  the  shame  and 
the  peril  of  our  people  at  home  and  their  opprobrium  in  for- 
eign countries.  It  is  that  system  which,  in  a  single  year,  has  J^ 
brought  more  partisan  and  mercenary  intrigue,  more  incom-  ^ 
petency,  more  extravagance,  scandal,  and  corruption  into  the 
New  York  Custom  House  alone,  than  have  existed,  in  a  whole 
decade,  in  both  the  Customs  and  Inland  Eevenue  Services 
of  Great  Britain  united. 

Another  evil  from  which  the  adoption  of  the  merit  system 
would  indirectly,  but  not  less  surely,  bring  great  relief,  is  that 
of  too  numerpus_-^lections  and  too  short  terms  on  the  part  of 
elected  officers,  especially  of  an  inferior  grade.  Nothing  has 
more  significantly  illustrated  the  growth  and  predominance  of 
partisan  theories  and  habits  in  this  country,  during  this  gener- 
ation, than  the  many  officers  originally  appointable  which  are  ' 
now  elective.  It  was  natural  that  the  people  should  think 
their  direct  choice  would  secure  better  officers  than  the  spoils 
system  of  appointment.  It  was  natural  that  when  political 
management  became  a  sort  of  trade,  of  which  offices,  places, 
and  promotions  were  the  capital  stock,  and  the  elections 
supplied  the  profits,  there  should  arise  a  class  of  politicians 
directly  interested  in  increasing  the  number  of  those  elections. 
Laws  and  constitutions  were  changed  in  the  interest  of  fre- 
quent elections  until  most  of  the ,  judicial  and  administrative 
places  in  the  States  and  municipalities,  and  not  a  few  mere 
clerkships,  were  not  only  made  elective,  but  the  terms  were 
made  so  short  that  adequate  experience  was  impossible.  It 
has  even  been  seriously  proposed  to  throw  the  choice  of  the 


400  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIX. 

j,  many  thousands  of  postmasters  into  the  turmoil  of  elections 
which  now  burden  and  disgust  the  people.  The  many  evils 
which  have  been  the  consequences  of  these  measures,  I  need  not 
stop  to  point  out.  The  confusion,  the  vast  expense,  the  corrupt 
partisan  activity,  the  inability  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  candi- 
dates, the  refusals  to  vote,  the  disgust  and  despair  (especially 
in  cities)  which  have  been  thus  caused  are  well  known.  No 
nation  not  tolerating  a  partisan  spoils  system  has  been  thus  tor- 
mented or  has  thus  departed  from  all  sound  principles.  It 
cannot,  I  think,  be  doubted  that  the  people  would  never  have 
made  such  radical  changes,  had  it  not  been  for  the  prostitution 
of  the  appointing  power.*  Nor  need  we  doubt  that  the  proper 
measures  of  relief  would  speedily  follow  the  elevation  of  that 
power.  It  was  not  more  elections  which  the  people  wanted, 
but  more  certainty  that  worthy  men  would  be  made  officers. 
So  rash  and  expensive  a  proceeding — bringing  into  play  the 
whole  machinery  of  caucus  nominations — as  that  of  calhng 
upon  a  community  to  ballot  for  town,  village,  and  city  post- 
masters, would  probably  never  be  proposed  to  any  people  not 
made  desperate  by  a  corrupt  and  partisan  system  of  appoint- 
ments. 

One  other  effect  of  the  merit  system  is  too  important  not 
to  be  noticed — the  indirect  effect  of  bringing  able  and  self-re- 
liant young  men  and  women,  who  have  stood  highest  in  com- 
petitions, into  the  departments  and  local  offices.  They  would 
soon  create  an  atmosphere  of  intelligence,  thoughtfulness, 
and  independence,  which,  in  itself,  would  make  it  very  difficult 
to  treat  such  offices  as  the  asylums,  or  the  citadels  of  partisan 
politics.  They  would  come  in  on  their  own  merits,  and  would 
owe  fealty  and  incline  to  be  servile  to  no  one.  They  would 
be  more  ready  to  expose  abuses,  and  more  inchned  to  assert  and 
defend  the  rights  and  manhood  of  those  who  serve  the  public, 
than  the  dependent  appointees  of  patronage  monopolists  ever 

,      *  Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  fact  tl^t  the  people  are  becoming 

^7     tired  of  these  short  terms  of  office.     New  York  has  lately  extended  the 

'      term  of  her  governor  to  three  years,  that  of  some  of  her  police  justices  to 

eight  years,  and  that  of  her  judges  from  eight  to  fourteen  years.     Several 

States  have  not  only  extended  the  tenure  of  various  officers,  but  have  made 

the  sessions  of  their  legislatures  biennial. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  401 

can  be.  The  people  would  rejoice  to  see  their  government  be- 
friending education  and  honoring  worth  and  capacity  in  the 
selection  of  its  agents.  Their  pride  and  patriotism  would  be  all 
the  greater,  when  in  every  official  place  they  beheld  a  man  or  a 
woman  whose  very  presence  proclaimed,  not  the  success  of 
oflBcial  or  partisan  influence  in  secret  ways,  but  the  victory  of 
personal  merit,  won  by  its  own  strength  in  open  and  manly 
contest  with  all  who  chose  to  compete.  Office  would  rise  in 
public  respect ;  and  government  itself  would  have  a  higher 
dignity  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  saw  it  spuming  servility, 
while  seeking  the  service  of  the  ablest  and  worthiest  among 
its  citizens.  With  better  and  abler  men  in  the  subordinate 
places,  mere  politicians — mere  strangers  to  its  business,  of  any 
sort — would  have  a  hard  time  indeed,  when  foisted  over  such 
subordinates  to  the  head  of  a  great  oflBce.  They  would  be 
contemptible  even  in  their  own  estimation.  The  bare  fact 
that  there  were  many  able  men  in  the  lower  grades  would 
make  it  certain  that  the  higher  places  would  soon  be  filled 
from  the  lower.  Ko  people  can  withhold  their  respect  from  a 
body  of  men  who  have  gained  their  places  by  demonstrating 
their  superior  fitness  to  perform  the  duties  which  such  places 
impose.  Every  successful  competitor  would  begin  to  share 
that  respect  the  moment  he  won  a  place  by  his  own  merits. 
If  no  self-seeking  patron  could  claim  a  right  to  disturb  his  ca- 
reer, the  friendly  sympathy  of  the  circle  or  the  village  where 
liis  honors  were  won  Avould  attend  his  progress.  Feebly  de- 
veloped as  the  pubhc  feeling  now  is  on  such  points,  I  venture 
to  think  that  an  ofiicer  would  call  down  upon  himself  no 
slight  criticism  who,  after  a  competition  under  civil  service 
rules,  should  reject  the  victor,  in  order  to  give  an  office  to  a 
favorite  dunce  at  the  foot  of  the  list,  or  to  an  office-seeking 
partisan  so  ignorant  that  he  dared  not  enter  the  contest. 

YI.  We  can  hardly  take  leave  of  our  subject  without  some 
reflections  as  to  the  best  policy  to  be  pursued  by  the  friends 
of  reform,  and  the  lines  along  which  they  can  act  most 
effectively. 

1.  The  demand  for  better  administration  and  the  spirit 
that  supports  reform  are  extending,  and  have  been  rapidly 
gaining  strength.     But  how  the  spoils  system  may  be  most 


402  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN    GREAT  BRITAIN". 

effectually  attacked,  and  what  should  be  substituted  in  its 
place  are  points  by  no  means  clear  in  the  public  mind. 
Many  of  the  friends  of  reform  are  only  in  the  stage  of  dis- 
gust, denunciation,  and  general  discontent  with  our  adminis- 
tration. They  have  not  those  definite  views  needed  for  devising 
or  even  for  giving  effective  support  to  better  methods.  While 
there  are  bad  methods  that  must  be  done  away  with,  the  main 
work  is  constructive — the  framing  and  putting  into  practice  of 
a  new  system  which  will  open  a  free  field  to  merit — a  system 
strong  enough  to  withstand  the  assaults  of  the  old  monopolist 
and  the  constant  pressure  of  hostile  interests.  We  need  clear 
views  and  a  wise  and  generally  accepted  theory  of  action,  as  a 
prerequisite  to  the  thorough  performance  of  that  work.  The 
natural  enemies  of  reform — whether  they  be  the  baser  spirits 
in  parties  acting  in  the  party  name,  or  selfish  individuals,  each 
seeking  his  own  gain — stand  together.  They  will  make 
a  common  attack  and  defence.  They  have  on  their  side  the 
familiar  usages,  and  the  distrust  of  non-partisan  methods, 
which  have  grown  up  during  more  than  a  generation  of  parti- 
san supremacy.  Many  worthy  jDcople  will,  probably,  even 
against  the  weight  of  reason,  for  a  time  allow  their  influence 
to  go  with  these  enemies — at  least  they  will  adhere  to  the 
partisan  theory — from  mere  want  of  knowledge  of  better 
methods,  and  consequently  from  lack  of  faith  in  their  suffi- 
ciency. These  facts  show  the  need  of  a  dissemination  of 
clearer  views  concerning  the  merit  system  and  the  improve- 
ments it  would  bring  about.  That  system  is  not  yet  clearly  in 
the  public  mind.  To  understand  it  is  the  first,  if  not  the  only 
argument  needed  to  make  a  supporter.  To  bring  its  just 
principles  and  its  simple,  practical  methods  distinctly  before  the 
intelligent  classes,  is  therefore  a  patriotic  and  paramount  duty. 
Perhaps  nothing  would  contribute  more  to  this  end  than  its 
application,  before  the  eyes  of  the  psople,  in  any  j)ublic  office 
— national,  State,  or  municipal.  The  examples  of  the  New 
York  City  Post  Office  and  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior 
have  been  educating  the  people  on  the  subject.  But  we  need 
a  didactic  literature  which  shall  show  what  can  be  done  to  im- 
prove administration,  and  how  to  do  it.  A  literature  of  com- 
plaint and  denunciation  will  not  suffice.     It  is  only  barren  and 


CIVIL   SERVICE    IX   GREAT   BRITAIN.  403 

disintegrating.  The  people  are  in  a  mood  to  listen  to  tliose  who 
will  properly  present  the  issue  between  the  two  systems — the 
question  whether  the  merit  system  or  the  partisan  spoils  sys- 
tem is  the  better,  the  most  in  harmony  with  our  institutions, 
the  safest  with  which  to  trust  the  fate  of  this  great  country. 
The  subject  has  a  direct  bearing  upon  every  man  of  property, 
upon  every  pupil  in  the  schools,  upon  every  man  and  woman 
in  office  or  who  seek  office,  upon  every  parent  whose  children 
hope  for  public  employment,  upon  the  action  of  parties  and 
the  prospective  gains  of  partisans,  as  well  as  upon  all  the  more 
unselfish  interests  which  find  their  support  in  the  higher  senti- 
ments of  the  nation. 

We  cannot  expect  to  change  the  moral  tone  or  the  political 
theories  of  a  generation  at  once.  The  new  system,  therefore, 
must  be  gradually  introduced  and  allowed  to  aid  its  own  prog- 
ress through  its  good  effects,  and  its  educational  influence, 
as  was  the  case  in  Great  Britain.  Its  enemies  wiil  contest  not 
only  the  theory  and  principles  of  reform,  but  will  resist  its 
application  to  every  department,  every  city,  every  office,  every 
nomination  and  promotion.  Hence,  its  friends  must  regard 
every  sejjarate  contest  as  having  some  importance  and  as  worthy 
their  attention.  There  is  no  greater  delusion  than  the  theory 
held  by  some  worthy  but  inexperienced  and  sanguine  reform- 
ers who,  scorning  deliberate  and  educational  processes,  ex- 
pect the  removal  of  all  our  abuses  to  be  brought  about,  sud- 
denly, in  a  grand  reform  campaign,  which  shall  drive  all  bad  men 
from  office  and  inaugurate  an  era  of  purity  and  patriotism.  A 
great  and  salutary  victory  of  reform  principles  at  the  polls 
may  doubtless  be  expected  very  soon.  The  great  parties 
should  be  forced  to  take  well-defined  positions  upon  the  re- 
form issue.  But  the  bases  of  a  permanent  reform  are  to  be 
sought  only  in  public  enlightenment,  and  in  those  practical 
methods  of  administration,  which,  by  steadily  vindicating  their 
own  utility  and  disproving  the  need  of  partisan  officials,  will 
educate  the  people  up  to  a  higher  standard  of  official  life  and  a 
clearer  conception  of  their  own  rights  and  duties.'  Our  spoils 
system  is  the  natural  result  of  the  combined  and  perennial  forces 

'  Sec  on  this  point,  ante,  p.  205  to  207. 


404  -CitlL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

( 

of  individual  selfishness  and  partisan  zeal,  left  free  to  work  their 
ends  in  political  life.     And  however  stayed   for  a  time  by- 
spasmodic  efforts,  they  can  be  permanently  arrested  only  by 
salutary  methods   in  daily  administration,  which  the   public 
intelligence  can  accept  as  founded  in  natural  justice  and  as 
conducive  to  the  general  welfare.    The  friends  of  reform  must 
not  despise  the  day  of  small  things.     It  must  be  seen  that  the 
issue,  the  opportunity,  and  the  duty  are  at  tlieir  own  doors. 
They  are,  in  a  degree,  involved  in  every  local  aj^pointment  or 
promotion,  as  well  as  in  the  great  dej^artments  at  Washington 
and  in  the  presidential  elections.     The  man,  who  signs   an 
undeserved  recommendation,  or  goes  before  a  mayor  or  an 
aldennan,  to  get  his  relatives  or  his  dependents  into  office, 
through  favoritism,  is  in  spirit  as  much  an  enemy  of  good 
administration  as  the  great  manipulator  who  brings  the  whole 
power  of  his  party  to  bear  in  the  interest  of  partisan  appoint- 
ments, or  the  high  official  who  prostitutes  liis  authority  by  the 
use  of  patronage  for  his  own  ends.     Faithful  citizens  all  over 
the  country,  in  every  narrow  as  well  as  every  broad  sphere, 
must  stand  up  for  the  right  and  interest  of  the  people  to  have 
worthy  men  and  women  in  office.     It  is  not  enough  to  make  a 
loud  complaint  because  the  President  and  Congress  do  not 
bring  a  great  reform  complete  to  our  doors.     We  need  a  defi- 
nite, resolute,  public  opinion  that  will  cause  both  the  President 
and  Congress  to  do  their  duty  whenever  they  neglect  it,  and 
not  merely  miscellaneous  protests  and  indefinite  indignation. 
A  cause,  which  is  that  of  the  patriotic  and  disinterested  classes 
against  all  partisan  monopolists  and  schemers — against  all  cor- 
rupt officials  and  all  jobbers  in  j^olitics — against  all  the  im- 
moral interests  of  society, — necessarily  demands  effort,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  public  enlightenment.     A  free  peojile,  in  the 
long  range,  have  as  good  administration  as  they  deserve.     If 
we  fold  our  hands  while  other  nations  advance,  we  must  suffer 
the  loss  and  tlie  disgrace.     Whatever  can  be  done  to  bring 
home  to  the  people  a  more  vivid  sense  of  the  true  dignity  and 
duty  of  office,  and  to  make  them  comprehend  how  taxes  are 
made  higher,  how  immorality  and  crime  are  increased,  how 
the  country  is  dishonored  and  law  and  politics  are  brought 
into  contempt,  by  incompetent  and  corrupt  officials,  are  among 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BlflMfST'*  ^*8HINGT(^|0|Q«, 

the  most  efficient  means  of  advancing  the  cause  of  civil  ser- 
vice reform.  Here,  I  think,  is  a  field  but  little  cultivated. 
And  are  not  the  people  in  the  towns,  villages,  cities,  and  coun- 
ties prepared  to  listen  with  interest  to  a  candid  and  courage- 
ous statement  of  the  facts  on  these  points  which  affect  their 
local  affairs  ?  Wherever  there  is  a  corrupt  officer,  wherever 
public  money  is  lost  or  administration  is  inefficient,  by  reason 
of  official  incompetency  or  partisan  dictation,  there  is  a  need 
for  civil  service  reform,  and  a  place  where  good  citizens  have 
a  duty. 

2.  But  public  opinion,  as  already  developed,  demands  that 
more  vigorous  and  extended  reform  measures  be  carried  for- 
ward, especially  by  the  national  government.  There  is,  however, 
a  question  whether  their  more  direct  support  should  be  sought 
in  a  law  of  Congress  or  in  the  action  of  the  executive  under 
existing  laws.  A  similar  question  arose  in  Great  Britain,  and, 
in  considering  it,  the  reasons  have  been  given'  which  clearly 
show  that  the  duty  of  initiating  and  guiding  a  reform  policy 
belongs  to  the  executive.  These  reasons  suggest  that,  inas- 
much as  the  first  effect  would  be  to  deprive  members  of 
their  patronage.  Congress  is  little  likely  to  take  the  lead  in 
devising  regulations  for  a  reform  ;  but  they  further  show 
how  that  adverse  interest  and  the  hostility  it  produces 
may  be  overcome.*  These  reasons  also  present  grave  ob- 
jections to  encouraging  legislative  interference  with  ex- 
ecutive functions.  They  show  how  very  inconvenient,  if 
not  disastrous,  it  would  be,  were  rigid  provisions  laid 
down  by  statute  for  conducting  the  detailed  work  of 
administration  in  the  tentative  stages  of  reform.  So  far 
as  the  executive  might  be  without  adequate  authority  under 
the  Constitution,  the  co-operation  of  Congress  would,  of 
course,  Be  essential.  But  that  lack  of  authority  has  been,  in 
the  main,  supplied  by  the  act  of  March  3d,  1871  (now  Re- 
vised Statutes,  §  1753),  which  is  as  follows  :  "  The  President 
is  authorized  to  prescribe  such  regulations  for  the  admission 
of  pereons  into  the  Civil  Service  of  the  United  States  as  may 
best  promote  efficiency,  and  ascertain  the  fitness  of  each  can- 

'  See  ante,  pp.  185  to  189,  and  also  pp.  211  and  213. 
'  See  ante,  pp.  211  to  213. 


406  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAI:N". 

didate,  in  respect  to  age,  health,  character,  knowledge,  and 
ability,  for  the  branch  of  the  service  he  seeks  to  enter  ;  and 
for  this  purpose  he  may  employ  suitable  persons  to  conduct 
such  inquiries  and  may  jjrescribe  their  duties  ;  and  establish 
regulations  for  the  conduct  of  persons  who  may  receive  ap- 
23ointments  in  the  Civil  Service." 

It  will  be  perceived  that  this  is  a  very  comprehensive  en- 
actment, covering  three  important  j^oints  :  (1)  Regulations 
fixing  the  conditions  of  admission  to  the  service  ;  (2)  The  em- 
ployment of  suitable  persons  to  conduct  the  examinations  ;  and 
(3)  Regulations  for  the  conduct  of  those  in  the  service.' 

The  authority  given  by  this  law  is  ample  to  enable  the  ex- 
ecutive to  do  much,  directly,  in  behalf  of  good  administration;' 
and  also  to  go  forward  with  the  work  of  reform  on  a  large 
scale,  whenever  Congress  can  be  induced  to  vote  a  moderate 
appropriation  of,  say,  $25,000  each  year.  That  amount  is 
needed  to  meet  the  necessary  expenses  attending  examinations 
in  various  quarters  of  the  Union  and  to  provide  for  the  pro^Der 
supervision  of  the  new  system  as  a  whole.  Uponh  these  i?oiiitSy 
it  is  important  that  the  full  force  of  jyiibllc  o])inion  should  he 
hrought  to  hear. 

It  is  desirable  to  so  amend  this  statute  as  to  provide  that  the 
chief  examiners  (who  should  constitute  a  civil  service  commis- 
sion) shall  hold  their  places  by  a  tenure  similar  to  that  of 
judges.  Their  duties  would  seem  to  be  essentially  judicial  in 
their  nature.  It  is  important  that  their  ajDpointment  and  ten- 
ure .should  be  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  any  peril  or  sus- 
picion of  partisan  influence. '  !N  o  argument  is  needed  to  make  it 
jilain  that  the  examinations  and  the  regulations,  as  well  as 
their  interpretation  and  enforcement,  should  proceed  upon  a 

'  It  would  be  more  satisfactory  perhaps  if  the  law  had  provided  that 
those  who  have  charge  of  the  examiaatious  should  have  a  general  duty  of 
supervising  the  execution  of  the  regulations  ;  but  the  regulations  themselves 
and  the  inherent  authority  of  the  executive  maj'  be  made  to  cover  that  duty, 
and  thus  the  necessary  vigor  and  uniformity  may  be  given  to  the  whole 
system. 

'■"  The  executive  order  of  June  22d,  1877,  against  federal  officers  taking 
part  in  the  management  of  local  politics  is  only  an  example  of  what  may 
be  done  under  this  authority  without  the  co-operation  of  Congress. 

^  See  ante,  p.  235. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"   GREAT  BRITAIN.  407 

uniform  principle  and  method  in  all  the  departments  and 
in  every  quarter  of  the  Union.  Diverse  and  independent 
rules  and  Boards  of  Examiners  in  each  separate  department  or 
great  office,  applying  one  standard  in  one  department  or  in 
one  local  office,  and  a  very  different  one  in  another — allowing 
regulations  to  be  enforced  now  as  understood  hy  one  board 
and  then  as  understood  by  some  other  board — would  only  lead 
to  confusion,  feebleness,  and  injustice.'  The  result  would  be 
suspicion  and  hostility,  highly  jirejudicial  to  the  public  inter- 
ests, and  perhaps,  for  the  time,  fatal  to  the  new  system. 

3.  There  is  another  class  of  legislation,  practicable  both  on 
the  part  of  Congress  and  of  the  State  legislatures,  which 
might  be  made  to  reinforce  the  cause  of  reform.  The  instruc- 
tive British  precedents  have  been  already  pointed  out,^  and 
they  cannot  be  too  carefully  studied.  It  cannot,  I  think, 
be  doubted  that,  to  clearly  lay  down  the  rules  of  official 
duty  in  the  exercise  of  the  appointing  power,  to  give  them 
the  prestige  of  law,  and  to  enable  their  violation  to  be  made 
the  basis  of  investigation  and  punishment,  would  as  greatly 
strengthen  the  reform  sentiment  in  this  country  as  it  did 
in  England.  The  alleged  violation  of  the  Kew  York  Statute  of 
1877,  referred  to  in  the  last  note,  has  already  been  made  the 
subject  of  a  legislative  investigation.  Upon  what  theory,  which 
does  not  also  embrace  the  exercise  of  the  appointing  jDOwer, 
can  partiality,  favoritism,  or  any  form  of  corruption  in  a  judge 
or  a  collector  be  made  a  ground  for  inquiry  and  punishment  ? 
Is  it  less  a  crime  against  morality  or  public  safety  to  wilfully 
bestow  the  office  of  collector,  judge,  or  commissioner  upon  a 
person  known  to  be  unfit — who  may  do  injustice  and  cause 
loss  in  a  hundred  instances — than  it  is  to  give  a  single  corrupt 
decision  or  appropriate  a  few  dollars  of  the  public  money,  for 
which  we  promptly  send  officers  to  prison  ?  Can  there  be  any 
good  cause  why  the  reasons  upon  which  public  officers  act  in 
making  appointments  should  not   be   investigated  whenever 

'  Harmony  of  action  could  be  secured  by  providing  that  one  mcm]>er  of 
the  general  Board  of  Examiners  should  act  as  a  member  of  the  several  local 
Boards  for  Examinations. 

"  Chap,  xi.,  pp.  85,  130  to  143.  and  p.  33,  note  3. 


408  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN"   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

tliere  is  prima  facie  evidence  that  tliej  have  used  their  au- 
thority for  indefensible  purposes  ?  * 

Has  a  collector,  a  postmaster,  or  a  major  any  more  right,  with 
the  intention  of  serving  his  party  or  his  friends,  to  foist  upon 
the  public  treasury  sinecurists,  or  clerks  known  to  be  incompe- 
tent to  earn  their  salaries  (when  efficient  persons  are  applicants), 
whereby  the  Government  suffers  a  loss  of  money,  than  he  has 
to  use  as  much  of  the  public  money  for  personal  or  par- 
tisan purposes  ?  In  morals  or  in  reason,  how  much  worse  is 
it  for  a  member  of  Congress  to  secretly  sell  a  nomination  to  the 
military  or  naval  academy  or  to  a  civil  department,  than  it  is  to 
gain  the  votes  and  the  commendation  of  many  families  and 
cliques,  on  the  deceptive  promise  of  the  same  nomination, 
which  after  the  election  he  gives  to  a  cousin  or  a  favorite  ? 
Yet,  for  one  class  of  these  offences,  the  wrong-doer  is  subject 
to  criminal  indictment,  while  for  the  other  the  law  leaves  him 
untouched.  A  half  developed  public  ojiinion  hesitates  and 
doubts,  and  perhaps  hints  a  judgment  by  calling  him  a  j)oli- 
tician."     But  still  we  fail  to  see  either  our  own  inconsistency 

'  There  is  a  late  New  York  statute  providing  for  summary  investigations 
which  is  in  principle  perhaps  a  precedent,  even  in  this  country,  for  such  aa 
inquiry.     See  Laws  of  New  York,  1873,  p.  514,  Chap.  335,  Sec.  109. 

^  If  it  be  asked  whether  the  suggestion  be  that  every  exercise  of  the  ap- 
pointing power  should  be  liable  to  be  inquired  into — perhaps  by  a  hostile 
member  of  an  opposina;  party — the  answer  is,  that  whenever  there  may  be 
adequate  proof  of  a  corrupt  or  otherwise  indefensible  use  of  that  jjower,  it  is 
as  fit  a  subject  of  investigation  and  punishment  as  would  be  a  case  of  the  cor- 
rupt or  indefensible  use  of  public  property  appearing  upon  like  proof.  There 
would  be  no  more  danger  of  too  frequent  or  unreasonable  investigations  of 
one  kind  than  of  the  other.  It  is  only  because  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
allow  the  appointing  power  to  be  exercised  in  a  feudal  and  partisan  spirit,  and 
to  look  upon  it  as  an  irresponsible  power,  that  it  seems  strange  to  us  to  have 
it  brought  witliin  the  same  rules  of  duty  and  responsibility  which  we  enforce 
in  cases  analogous.  In  the  same  inconsiderate  manner,  it  may,  very  likely, 
be  said  that  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  decide  whether  the  officer  made 
an  appointment  either  for  a  personal  or  a  partisan  purpose,  or  only  for  an 
honest  public  purpose.  But  the  least  reflection  will  show  that  question  to 
be  far  less  difficult  than  those  which  are  presented  in  every  criminal  and 
most  civil  cases,  viz.  :  wliether  there  be  "  premeditated  malice,"  "  felonious 
purpose,"  "disregard  of  human  life,"  "  an  intent  to  appropriate  to  one's 
own  use,"  "  gross  negligence,"  "  ability  to  distinguish  right  and  wrong  ;" 
questions  which,  though  much  more  metaphysical  and  much  further  remov- 
ed from  the  outward  sphere  of  facts,  arc  every  day  made  decisive,  not 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIX.  409 

or  tlie  force  of  those  British  precedents  to  which  our  partisan 
theories  liave  so  nearly  blinded  ns, 

Xeed  it  be  doubted  that  here,  as  in  Great  Britain,  the  brand- 
ing of  a  prostitution  of  the  appointing  power  as  a  criminal 
offence  would  not  only  greatly  limit  the  abuse  itself,  but 
would  arouse  a  strong  public  opinion  against  it  ?  Duelling, 
gambling,  and  lottery  selling  soon  become  infamous  under  the 
condemnation  of  the  statutes. 

The  theory,  that  the  reasons  for  an  appointment  are  the 
secrets  of  the  officers  or  the  party  leaders,  is  only  a  part  of 
the  system  which  treats  the  appointments  themselves  as  the 
perquisites  of  the  officer,  and  the  gains  to  be  made  of  them  as 
the  spoils  of  his  party.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  denounce 
this  system  and  pass  resolutions  condemning  it.  We  must  do 
as  the  English  did  a  century  ago — make  official  action,  in  its 
spirit,  criminal  in  the  view  of  the  statutes  and  the  courts. 

4.  In  close  connection  with  the  British  statutes  restraining 
the  corrupt  use  of  the  appointing  power,  are  the  laws  forbid- 
ding public  officers  interfering  with  the  freedom  of  elections 
and  the  political  equality  of  the  people  in  private  life.  The 
most  characteristic  of  them  is  the  statute  of  Anne,'  to  which 
special  reference  has  already  been  made.  The  salutary  effects 
of  laws  like  this  cannot  be  questioned.  They  are  not  less 
effective  in  keeping  officers  to  the  discharge  of  their  duties 
than  they  are  in  protecting  the  people  against  official  coer- 
cion and  in  preventing  pernicious  combinations,  between 
public  servants  and  partisan  managers,  for  the  purposes 
of  political  intrigue  and  dishonest  gains.  I  cannot  doubt 
that  a  comprehensive  law,  in  the  spirit  of  that  last  referred 
to,  which  should  cover  the  whole  field  of  official  life, 
would  be  of  great  public  utility.  It  must  be  regarded 
as  one  of  the  greatest  anomalies  of  our  politics  (especial- 
ly in  view  of  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  has  not  only 
enforced  that  statute,  but  from  the  same  cause  for  several 
generations  utterly  disfranchised  her  subordinate  officials}  that 
we  liave  had  no  pervading  public   opinion  Avliich  has  fixed 

simply  of  a  continuance  of  public  favor,  but  of  property,  cliaracter,  and 
life  itself. 
'  See  ante,  p.  85  and  309  to  SIO. 


410  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

any  well-defined  limits  to  tlie  use  of  official  authority  for 
political  or  even  for  partisan  ends.  Kotliing  more  strik- 
ingly illustrates  the  demoralizing  influence  of  a  partisan-spoil- 
system,  administered  by  the  omnipotent  party  majority,  in 
degrading  the  sense  of  individual  rights  and  official  I'esponsi- 
bility,  than  the  fact  that,  in  this  republic,  we  tolerate  an  official 
intermeddling  with  the  political  freedom  of  the  citizen,  which 
has  been  unknown  in  the  mother  country  for  three  genera- 
tions, and  which  is  only  surpassed  by  the  more  despotic  of 
the  continental  governments. 

5.  Another  much  needed  law  is  one  which  shall  be  ade- 
quate to  suppress  the  demoralizing  and  despotic  practice  of 
levying  political  assessment  upon  the  subordinates  in  the  civil 
service.  Had  we  not  grown  up  in  familiarity  with  this  abuse, 
elsewhere  unknown  among  the  enlightened'  nations,  we  should 
probably  look  with  something  like  contempt  upon  a  govern- 
ment without  the  ability,  the  sense  of  justice  or  of  its  own 
dignity,  required  to  protect  the  salaries  of  its  faithful  servants 
from  public  pillage  under  orders  of  confiscation  from  the  camps 
of  pohtics.  I  have  no  space  for  setting  forth  the  manifold 
evils  which  flow  from  this  abuse.  How  can  we  expect  zeal  in 
the  pubhc  service,  or  a  high  sense  of  honor,  or  a  manly  in- 
dependence of  thought  or  action,  on  the  part  of  a  body  of 
men  and  women  every  moment  exposed  to  unlimited  extor- 
tion at  the  hands  of  those  whose  favor  gave  them  their  places 
and  whose  frown  threatens  their  removal  ?  We  have  no 
reason  to  expect  a  clerk  to  be  honest  to  whom  the  nation 
is  not  just.  Until  we  are  ready  to  protect  an  officer  in  what  he 
has  earned  and  to  give  him  a  tenure  fairly  reliable,  we  have 
no  right  to  complain  if  he  takes  time  for  his  own  defence  and 
makes  leagues  with  robbers  to  whose  mercy  we  leave  him. 
How  can  we  hope  to  reduce  the  excessive  and  mercenary 
activity  in  our  politics  within  reasonable  hmits,  so  long  as  we 
permit  the  partisan  treasuries  to  be  filled  by  freely  intercepting 
the  public  money  between  the  pay  offices  of  the  people  and 
the  pockets  of  the  officials  ?  How  can  we  expect  to  reduce 
salaries  to  reasonable  amounts,  so  long  as  their  excessive  rates 
not  only  increase  the  chances  of  gain,  on  the  part  of  every 
corrupt  politician  and  every  partisan  clique,  but  are  in  them- 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  411 

selves  a  sort  of  justification  of  the  levies  by  -which  the  ex- 
penses of  the  great  parties  are  paid  ? 

It  has  been  explained  how  it  happened  that  this  kind  of  ex- 
tortion is  almost  the  only  abuse  in  our  pohtics  which  did  not, 
at  an  early  day,  exist  in  a  more  aggravated  form  in  the  mother 
country.*  But  it  has  also  been  shown  that  more  than  two  and 
a  half  centuries  ago  there  were  legal  prohibitions  in  Great 
Britain  incompatible  with  introduction  of  that  abuse."  Pub- 
lic oflicers,  like  other  citizens,  should  of  course  be  allowed  to  >C 
freely  make  contributions  in  aid  of  their  o^vn  views  of  politics 
or  religion.  But  all  sohcitation,  whether  by  agents  or  by  cir- 
culars, in  any  department  or  office,  should  be  prevented  by 
law.  Every  officer  should  be  forbidden  to  take  any  part  in 
reference  to  such  collections.  Every  person  in  the  pubhc 
service — whether  officer  or  workman — should  be  made  to 
clearly  comprehend  that  he  is  under  no  more  constraint  to  part 
with  the  fraits  of  his  toil  for  political  purposes,  and  is  in  no 
more  danger  of  losing  his  place  if  he  refuses  to  do  so,  than  any 
laborer  upon  a  farm  or  any  clerk  in  a  private  workshop.  Such 
legal  protection  is  essential  to  true  liberty,  manhood,  or  justice 
in  public  life.  These  views  are  gaining  strength,  even  beyond 
the  more  non-partisan  *  circles.  Eat  they  will  never  be  vindi- 
cated in  practice  until  the  people  give  strong  expression  to  their 
will  on  the  subject.  The  principle  of  such  a  law  is  covered 
by  existing  statutes.  One  act  prohibits  officers,  clerks  and 
employes  soliciting  contributions  for  gifts,  or  making  gifts  to 
their  official  superiors,  and  such  superiors  are  forbidden  to  re- 
ceive gifts  from  their  subordinates.*  These  provisions,  how- 
ever, are  utterly  inadequate  in  scope  to  put  much  restraint 
upon  the  great  evil  which  they  recognize.  Relating  only 
to  officers  in  a  line  of  subordination,  they  leave  unchecked 
both  the  despotic  use  of  the  appointing  power  and  the 
prescriptive  influence  of  parties,  by  which  payments  are 
exacted  under  threats   of    removal    and    bribes    of    promo- 

>  See  ante,  p.  43.  '  See  ante,  p.  43,  50  to  52,  and  810. 

'  "  No  official  or  officeholder  should  be  subject  to  political  or  partisan 
assessments,  .  .  .  and  plain  laws  should  punish  all  attempts  .  .  . 
to  enforce  such  assessments  .  .  .  or  to  abridge  absolute  freedom  in 
political  action." — Resolutions  of  Republican  Convention  of  New  York, 
of  September,  1877.  *  U.  S.  Revised  Statutes,  §  1784. 


412  CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAHST. 

tion.'  Another  statute''  affirms  the  same  principle  somewhat 
more  broadly,  by  prohibiting  all  executive  officers  and  employes 
of  the  United  States  from  requesting,  giving  to,  or  receiving 
from  any  other  officer  or  employe  of  the  government,  any 
money,  property,  or  other  thing  of  value  ^  for  political  purposes  ; 
but  with  the  exception  that  the  prohibition  shall  not  apply  to 
officers  "  appointed  by  the  President  with  the  advice  and  con- 
sent of  the  Senate  /"  If  that  lamentable  and  significant  excep- 
tion came  from  the  Senate  itself,  it  would  make  the  difference 
between  its  disinterestedness  and  that  of  the  House  of  Lords 
still  more  conspicuous.  It  would  certainly  go  far  to  confirm 
the  popular  belief  that  patronage  and  partisan  interests  are  no- 
where so  strongly  entrenched  and  so  unblushingly  defended  as 
in  the  highest  legislative  body  of  the  nation.  In  any  event, 
the  import  and  suggestion  of  this  exception  are  of  painful  sig- 
nificance. The  officers  confirmed  by  the  Senate  are  of  the 
higher  class,  of  wliom  many  have  an  authority  of  nomination 
or  a  right  to  recommend  promotions  and  removals.  Their 
power  and  influence  overawe  the  tens  of  thousands  of  officers 
who  fill  the  grades  below.  Upon  what  principle  of  justice  or 
policy  can  official  tyranny  and  partisan  coercion  be  prohibited, 
as  between  officers  of  nearly  equal  grade,  and  yet  be  allowed 
(if  not  by  plain  suggestion  invited)  on  the  part  of  those  high 
officials  whose  caprice  can  be  enforced  and  whose  bad  example 
is  most  demoralizing  ?  This  statute  is  also  sadly  defective  in 
affording  clerks  and  employees  no  protection  against  partisan 
tax-gatherers  who  are  not  in  the  public  service.  An  officer, 
simply  hecause  he  has  heen  confirmed  hy  the  Senate,  is  at  lib- 
erty, under  this  statute,  to  use  his  influence  for  tlie  removal  of 
any  poor,  worthy  clerk,  if  he  refuses  to  pay  the  contributions 
which  such  tax-gatherers  may  choose  to  demand.*     In   the 

'  They  do  not  even  seem  to  have  prevented  a  member  of  the  Cabinet 
being  himself  the  liead  of  a  political  bureau  of  extortion. 

«  U.  S.  Laws,  1876,  chap.  287,  §  6. 

^  Is  an  office  "  a  thing  of  value  "  within  the  meaning  of  this  law  ?  Why 
not  use  the  comprehensive  prohibitions  of  British  statutes,  if  the  true  intent 
be  to  stop  bribery  by  promises  of  office  and  promotion  ? 

A  bill  is  now  pending  (46th  Cong.,  1st  Session,  H.  R.  226)  which  pro- 
hibits, in  very  general  terms,  the  demanding  or  paying  of  money  for  politi- 
cal purposes,  by  officers,  clerks,  or  employees  of  the  government.  The 
prohibitions  extend  to  superior  officers  permitting  the  collection  of  such 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  413 

whole  range  of  British  and  American  legislation,  during  the 
last  quarter  of  a  century,  I  am  aware  of  no  contrast  so  strik- 
ing, or  to  an  American  so  painful,  as  that  afforded  by  these 
statutes  when  compared  with  the  action  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment in  sustaining  open  competition  over  twenty  years  ago/ 
Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  this  exception,  in  the  interest  of 
servility  and  proscription,  will  not  long  be  allowed  to  dishonor 
the  national  laws  ?  If  but  a  single  senator  would  present  it 
in  its  true  light  before  the  people,  he  would  arouse  a  senti- 
ment which  would  make  its  early  repeal  inevitable. 

6.  On  one  other  point  there  is  a  necessity  of  appealing  to 
Congress.  It  is  in  regard  to  the  laws,  already  referred  to,  lim- 
iting the  tenure  of  collectors,  postmasters,  naval  officers,  and 
various  other  officials  to  four  years.  We  have  seen  that  these 
statutes  came  in  with  the  causes  of  the  spoils  system,  which 
they  greatly  strengthen  ;  if  indeed  they  may  not  bo  said  to 
have  paved  the  way  tor  that  system.  They  ought  to  be  re- 
pealed. They  suggest  that  such  officers  should  come  in  and 
go  out  with  each  administration,  and  they  cause  many  changes 
just  when  officers  have  been  long  enough  in  their  places  to 
become  efficient.  They  cause  uncertainty  and  perpetual  agi- 
tation in  ail  the  lower  circles  of  official  life.  They  are  utterly 
destructive  of  that  experience,  consistency,  and  steadiness  of 
policy  without  which  no  good  administration  is  possible.  So 
short  a  term  dissuades  the  worthier  men  from  taking  these 
offices.  It  forces  those  who  hold  them  into  constant  efforts 
of  a  pernicious  kind  to  strengthen  their  influence  in  aid  of  a 
reappointment.  These  short  terms  also  add  greatly  to  the 
disastrous  effects  which  the  present  method  of  senatorial  con- 
firmations exerts  upon  the  public  service,  and  to  the  facil- 
ity with  which  partisan  manipulators  can  make  their  demoral- 
izing influence  felt  within  the  departments.  The  mischievous 
tendency  of  these  short  terms  of  office,  unknown  under  our 
original  system,  which  the  law  of  1820  introduced,  Avas  so 
manifest  even  without  trial,  as  to  arouse  the  gravest  fears  of 
the  great  statesmen  of  that  day.'  In  the  humiliating  abuses 
which  we  suffer,  in  connection  with  so  frequent  appointments 

moneys,  and,  on  certain  conditions,  to  government  contractors.  The  bill 
embodies  very  salutary  principles. 

*  See  ante,  p.  213.  *  Webster,  Benton  and  Calhoun,  especially. 

27 


414  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

and  confirmations,  we  may  see  the  fulfilment  of  tlieir  gloomy 
predictions,"  which  I  regret  want  of  space  docs  not  permit  me 
to  cite. 

These  may  perhaps  be  accepted  as  the  more  important, 
practical  issues  to  bo  made,  and  upon  which  public  opinion 
may  with  advantage  be  concentrated.  But  there  is  another 
serious  obstacle  to  a  thorough  reform,  upon  which  British  ex- 
perience sheds  no  light.  I  mean  the  manner  in  which  the 
Senate  exercises  the  power  of  confirmation.  To  discuss  that 
subject  is  quite  beyond  the  scope  of  this  work.  It  is  well 
known  this  power  is  not  used,  as  the  Constitution  contem- 
plated it  would  be,  merely  as  a  check  upon  bad  nominations 
by  the  executive.  It  has  been  so  magnified  as  in  great 
measure  to  supersede  executive  authority,  and  to  confer  upon 
the  Senators  from  each  State  (or  the  Senator  of  the  dominant 
party)  a  sort  of  feudal  lordship  over  nominations  for  officers 
who  are  to  serve  within  the  State.  The  interference  of  the 
Senate,  with  executive  functions,  has  not  been  limited  to  the 
matter  of  appointments.  Since  1867,  it  has  even  been  carried 
to  the  extent  of  assuming  to  restrain  and  regulate  the  discharge 
of  the  executive  duty  of  removal  for  cause.  This  has  been 
done  by  making  the  consent  of  the  Senate  essential  to  the 
removal,  during  his  term  of  office,  of  an  officer  confirmed  by 
that  body.  In  this  way  the  influence  of  the  Senate  has  been 
greatly  increased  and  the  constitutional  functions  of  the  execu- 
tive have  been  in  a  corresponding  degree  impaired.^  The  de- 
moralizing influence  of  this  system  upon  legislation,  upon  State 
politics,  upon  discipline,  economy,  and  fidelity  in  the  depart- 
ments, and  upon  the  dignity  and  usefulness  of  the  Senate  itself, 
is  notorious  and  hardly  disputed.  ^  The  very  counterpoise  of  the 

'  Speaking  of  the  proscription  to  which  the  Law  of  1830  so  greatly  con- 
tributed, Mr.  Webster  used  tliis  language  in  a  speech  delivered  in  Worces- 
ter, in  1832  :  "  Mr.  President,  so  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  civilized  coun- 
try on  earth  in  which,  on  a  change  of  rulers,  there  is  such  an  inquisition 
for  spoils  as  we  have  witnessed  in  this  free  republic.  When,  Sir,  did  any 
British  minister,  Whig  or  Tory,  ever  make  such  an  inquest  ?  When  did  he 
ever  take  away  the  daily  bread  of  weighers  and  gangers  and  measurers  ? 
Sir,  a  British  Minister  who  should  do  this,  and  should  afterwards  show  liis 
head  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  would  be  received  by  a  universal 
hiss."  "^  U.  S.  Rev.  Stat.,  1767  to  1771. 

'  It  was  declared  in  debate  in  the  Senate,  in  December,  1889,  that  "  nomi- 
nall}',  appointments  are  so  made  [in  the  constitutional  mode],  but  in  reality 


CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN.  415 

government  has  been  disturbed  by  an  invasion  of  the  executive 
from  the  legislative  department.  This  is  no  place  for  considering 
a  remedy.  But  it  is  plain  that  whatever  shall  tend  to  weaken  the 
spoils  system  in  other  quarters,  whatever  shall  tend  to  fill  the  de- 
partments with  young  men  and  women  of  worth  and  capacity, 
whatever  shall  tend  to  restore  to  the  executive  its  true  and 
constitutional  functions  in  other  particulars,  whatever  shall 
bring  the  aggression  and  monopoly  of  the  Senate  more  promi- 
nently before  the  people,  will  also  tend  to  make  such  usurpa- 
tion obnoxious  and  intolerable.  It  is  only  an  aroused  public 
sentiment  that  can  open  the  way  for  bringing  the  exercise  of 
the  power  of  confirmation  into  harmony  with  the  interests  and 
rights  of  the  people.  That  power  extends  to  but  a  moderate 
portion  of  the  officers.  The  Senate  could  not  long  resist  a 
powerfully  expressed,  public  censure,  concentrated  upon  the 
narrow  field  of  its  monopoly.  And  it  is  only  just  to  expect 
that  Senators  of  the  United  States  will  be  ready  to  yield  to 
changes  that  may  be  shown  to  be  essential  for  the  public  wel- 
fare. '  They  will  not  venture  to  defend  an  usurpation  through 
which  they  have  taken  to  themselves  feudal  prerogatives. 
They  will  never  try  to  justify  a  monopoly  of  the  appointing 
power  which  the  public  opinion  of  Great  Britain  more  than 
a  generation  since  took  from  members  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  They  now  act  upon  precedents,  the  inherent  evils  of 
which  long  practice  has  deprived  of  half  their  hatefulness.  If 
it  be  too  much  (and  I  do  not  think  it  is  too  much)  to  expect 
that  the  Senators  of  a  republic  will  be  found  to  have  the  pat- 

they  are  dictated  and  controlled,  in  a  vast  majority  of  cases,  by  an  influence 
unknown  to  the  Constitution  or  laws.  Every  Senator,  and  every  Represen- 
tative in  the  other  House,  knows  that  appointments  in  most  cases  are  dic- 
tated b}-  them  ;"  and  in  a  debate  in  tlie  House  in  1870,  that  "  under  the  pres- 
ent custom  in  the  Senate,  it  is  almost  impossible  for  a  united  House-delega- 
tion to  get  a  good  man  confirmed  if  the  Senators  from  the  State  prefer  a  bad 
one  :  in  other  words.  Senators  secure  the  rejection  of  those  that  the  Presi- 
dent has  constitutionally  nominated,  not  because  they  are  not  fit  for  the  j^lace 
in  question,  but  because  they  do  not  themselves  recommend  them. "  Report 
U.  S.  Civil  Service  Commission,  April,  1874,  p.  18. 

'  In  his  message  of  December  5th,  1870,  President  Grant  says:  There  is 
no  duty  which  so  much  embarrasses  the  executive  and  heads  of  departments 
as  that  of  appointments,  nor  is  there  any  such  arduous  and  thankless  labor 
imposed  on  Senators  and  Representatives  as  that  of  finding  places  for  con- 
stituents." 


416  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIX. 

riotism  needed  to  follow  the  examjjles  of  British  noblemen — 
of  Chatliara,  Liverpool,  and  Granville  many  years  ago — in  vol- 
untarily surrendering  patronage,  surely  it  is  not  too  much  to 
expect  that  (like  the  majority  of  the  members  of  both  houses 
of  the  British  Parliament  in  the  last  decade),  the  members  of 
the  Senate  will  make  a  virtue  of  necessity,  by  yielding  grace- 
fully to  a  frowning  public  oj)inion,  without  driving  the  people 
to  a  constitutional  amendment  for  the  suppression  of  official 
feudalism  under  the  most  democratic  government  of  the 
world.  Politics  certainly  exhibit  many  inconsistencies  ;  but 
thoughtful  Senators  are  not  likely  to  believe,  because  for  a 
time  they  have  been  allowed  through  usurpation  to  become 
feudal  lords  of  patronage,  that  the  peoj^le  will  very  long  toler- 
ate so  anomalous  and  degrading  a  despotism.' 

Y.  In  a  late  case  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  in  which  that  tribunal  made  a  salutary  aj^plication  of 
British  law  to  some  of  our  abuses,  it  is  declared  that  "  no  peo- 
ple can  have  a  higher  public  interest,  except  the  preservation 
of  their  liberties,  than  integrity  in  the  administration  of  their 
government  in  all  its  branches. "  ^  If  this  volume  proves  that 
vital  truth  not  to  have  been  so  fully  comprehended  by  the 
American  people  as  by  the  people  of  some  other  countries, 
there  has  certainly  been  much  to  excuse  their  failure  ;  and  the 
future  promises  a  better  appreciation.  The  American  consti- 
tutional system  was  by  far  the  most  original  and  the  grandest 
political  achievement  ever  yet  made  by  one  generation. 
Our  early  administration  was  placed. upon  a  basis  of  jus- 
tice and  purity  far  in  advance  of  any  which  elsewhere  ex- 
isted. It  was  but  natural  that  the  brilliant  success  of  the  great 
experiment  should  dazzle  the  public  mind.  It  led  the  way 
to  a  general  conviction  that  a  government  founded  in  sound 
principles  held  within  itself  preserving  virtues  so  efficient  that 
it  might  be  safely  handed  over  to  such  voluntary  combina- 
tions among  the  people  as  should  be  jileased  to  take  an  interest 
in  carrying  it  on.     The  many  questions  incident  to  the  creation 

^  "The  democratic  nations  which  have  introduced  freedom  into  their  po- 
litical constitutions,  at  the  very  time  that  tliey  were  augmenting  the  despotism 
of  their  administrative  constitutions  have  been  led  into  strange  paradoxes." 
Democracy  in  America,  by  De  Tocqueville,  vol.  2,  p.  395. 

^  Trist  r.  Child,  21  Wallace  R.,  450. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   m  GREAT  BRITAIN.  417 

of  a  new  government,  to  the  developing  industries  of  a  new 
continent,  and  to  their  relation  to  foreign  States,  absorbed 
public  attention.  Exciting  and  novel  theories,  which  natu- 
rally developed  the  most  intense  pohtical  activity,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  interpretation  and  enforcement  of  the  new  con- 
stitution and  laws,  strongly  tended  to  withdraw  thought  from 
administrative  methods  and  from  all  the  internal  relations  of 
the  government,  l^o  state  of  facts,  among  a  people  in  the 
condition  of  our  fathers,  could  be  more  favorable  to  the  steady 
growth  of  intensely  partisan  and  vicious  methods  in  adminis- 
tration or  more  effectually  tend  to  blind  the  people  to  their  bad 
effects.  A  few  sagacious  statesmen  comprehended  the  nature 
and  magnitude  of  the  evil  from  the  outset.  But  before  any  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  people  understood  the  situation,  the 
spoils  system  was  not  only  developed  but  entrenched.  In  the 
meantime,  we  had  gone  so  far  and  were  so  shaken  on  the 
stormy  seas  which  carried  us  into  the  great  civil  conflict, 
that  little  thoughtful  attention  could  be  secured  for  any  ques- 
tions relating  to  the  more  internal  operations  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  hardly  need  be  pointed  out  that  the  period  which 
immediately  followed  the  civil  war  was  in  every  way  unfavor- 
able to  introspection,  candid  deliberation,  or  reform  of  any 
kind.  But,  in  the  later  years,  a  change  has  been  coming  over 
the  public  mind.  "  The  era  of  buoyant  youth  is  coming  to  a 
close  ;  ripe  and  sober  manhood  is  to  take  its  place.  "^  Fourth- 
of-July  orations  are  no  longer  given  to  political  boasting. 
There  is  a  feeling  of  soberness  for  giving  some  thought 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  enough  to  have  a  government 
based  on  just  principles.  It  must  be  administered  by  pure 
and  able  men,  or  the  people  cannot  prosper.  Attention 
rests  more  than  ever  before  upon  the  facts  that,  though 
the  original  questions  which  divided  parties  have  nearly 
disappeared,  though  the  supreme,  national  peril  which  appalled 
a  whole  generation  has  been  taken  out  of  our  politics,  though 
principles  less  than  ever  before  divide  the  great  parties,  yet 
party  struggles  are  not  less  intense.  The  vicious  and  exces- 
sive activity  of  partisans  has  rather  increased  than  dimin- 
ished.    The  people  are  more  than  ever  before   taking  notice 

'  Preface,  Von  Hoist's  Const.  History  United  States,  p.  i. 


418  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN, 

that  tlie  party  issues  tend  to  gather  about  the  means  of  getting 
into  power  and  the  possession  and  division  of  patronage, 
offices,  and  spoils.  They  begin  to  see  that  the  questions  which 
are  permanently  absorbing  and  important  arc  administrative 
cpestions„  They  are  as  never  before  alive  to  the  facts  how 
seriously  these  questions  concern  economy  and  taxation,  the 
efficiency  with  which  the  laws  arc  executed,  the  safety  of  life 
and  property,  the  morals  of  politics,  the  purity  and  freedom  of 
elections — in  short,  the  prosperity  and  safety  not  only  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole,  but  of  every  State,  county,  city,  to-s\ni,  and 
citizen  which  it  contains.  They  are  alarmed  at  the  many 
cases  of  official  infidelity.  They  begin  to  comprehend  that  to 
get  good  men  into  office  is  one  of  the  paramount  needs  of  all 
government — one  of  the  supreme  conditions  of  all  prosperity. 
This  riper  and  sounder  temper  of  the  national  mind  has,  in  the 
last  decade,  several  times  forced  partisan  organization  to  de- 
nounce the  spoils  system,  and  to  make  pledges  of  administrative 
reform ;  but  with  what  sincerity,  in  some  cases,  need  not  be 
here  considered.  And  it  has  finally,  for  the  first  time  in  our 
history,  made  the  question  of  such  reform  a  distinct  and  leading 
issue  in  a  national  canvass.  The  experience  of  Great  Britain 
shows  us  that  wdien  that  question  has  been  once  raised  in  the 
fonim  of  politics,  it  is  sure  to  more  and  more  arrest  public 
attention.  The  reform  elements,  there,  rapidly  gained  strength 
imtil  their  final  triumph.  Is  there  any  reason  to  doubt  that 
our  experience  will  be  the  same  ? 

The  question  whether  the  partisan-spoils  system  or  the  merit 
system  shall  j)revail  in  our  politics  is  really  the  question 
whether  the  self-respecting,  intelligent  manhood  and  woman- 
hood of  the  whole  nation  may  compete  for  the  honor  of  hold- 
ing official  places,  or  a  profession  of  dominant  opinions  and 
servility  to  the  partisan  majority  of  the  hour  shall  fix  the  class 
and  the  boundary  beyond  which  no  selection  shall  be  made — 
whether  the  caucus,  the  ' '  rings, ' '  and  the  secret  arts  of  the 
politicians,  or  the  studious  and  industrious  homes  and  Avork- 
sliojis,  the  schools,  the  seminaries  and  the  colleges,  shall  mould 
the  character  which  is  to  serve  and  guide  the  nation  ?  Is  it 
possible  that  a  method  of  selection  based  on  equal  opportunities 
and  common  rights  for  all  can  be  overborne,  in  a  great  re- 
public, by  a  system  of  proscription  and  privilege — of  feudal 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIX.  419 

and  oflacial  favoritism  ?  Are  the  United  States  to  perma- 
nently stand  before  the  world  as  the  only  great  nation  which 
foregoes  the  best  methods  of  bringing  into  its  high  service  the 
worthiest  of  its  citizens — as  the  only  nation  which  allows  its 
officials  to  be  plundered  by  its  parties,  and  its  parties  to  make 
merchandise  of  its  offices  ? 

Free  public  competition  in  the  selection  of  nominees  for  the 
pubhc  service  is  the  most  essential  feature  of  the  merit  sys- 
tem. It  is  at  once  the  most  democratic  and  the  most  just  and 
salutary  agency  of  good  government  which  has  been  developed 
in  the  political  experience  of  modern  times.  It  is,  in  fact,  no 
mere  method  in  administration  or  politics.  It  embodies  a 
great  principle  of  jutice  and  progress,  which  finds  illustration 
alike  in  the  rivalry  of  nations,  in  the  competition  of  races,  in 
the  providential  order  of  the  universe  itself.  Wherever  there 
is  life  and  growth,  there  is  a  competition,  in  which  the  de- 
velopment and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  are  the  conditions  of 
superiority  and  progress,  if  not  of  continued  existence.  For 
the  improvement  of  every  species  and  every  breed,  the  best  of 
the  kind  must  be  selected  and  cared  for ;  nor  does  the  rule 
fail  when  we  come  to  the  growth  of  communities,  and  the 
prosperity  of  nations.  To  secure  the  best  men  for  officers  and 
leaders  is,  next  to  the  creation  of  government  itself,  the  most 
difficult  problem  of  statesmanship — the  greatest  achievement 
which  political  wisdom  can  make.  The  conditions  of  prosper- 
ity with  every  people  are  involved  in  the  extent  to  which  they 
bring  their  purest  and  wisest  minds  into  positions  of  honor  and 
control.'  !lSo  nation  however  strong,  no  race  howev^er  vigorous, 
could  long  preserve  its  relative  prestige  and  prosperity  in  the 
world,  if  it  should  disregard  these  conditions.     The  need,  in 

'  I  am  not  unmindful  that  the  officers  directly  selected  through  com- 
petition cannot  be  said  to  be  "  leaders."  and  are  not  at  once  given  control. 
But  I  repeat  that,  as  soon  as  non-partisan,  self-reliant  men  of  worth  and 
capacity  shall  have  filled  the  lower  grades,  the  higher  places  (except  a  few 
of  the  very  highest)  will  certainly  be  filled  by  promotions  from  those  be- 
low ;  and  upon  that  being  the  case,  not  only  will  it  be  seen  to  be  incon- 
gruous and  really  impracticable  to  put  into  those  controlling  positions  mere 
politicians  or  inferior  men  of  any  kind,  but  the  theories  and  the  morals  of 
politics  will  be  so  improved  that  incompetent,  self-seeking  men  will  no  more 
be  accepted  as  leaders  in  civil  administration  than  they  now  are  in  arms  or 
in  education. 


420  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

every  nation,  of  being  served  by  its  ablest  and  best  men  in  tlie 
great  contests  of  arms  and  diplomacy,  and  even  in  the  higher 
places  in  its  internal  affairs,  was  not,  of  course,  left  for  modern 
times  to  discover.  It  was,  however,  left  to  these  times  to  com- 
prehend, or  if  not  to  comprehend,  at  least  to  act  upon,  the 
theory  that  it  is  of  essential  importance  to  have  all  the  subordi- 
nate (as  well  as  the  higher)  official  places,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  filled  with  persons  of  sufficient  ability  and  character. 
The  leading  nations  have  treated  this  question  of  official  com- 
petency as  so  vital  as  to  require  not  only  persistent  national 
efforts  to  that  end,  but  the  surrender  of  the  privileges  of 
royalty  and  class,  the  theories  of  birthright  and  aristocracy, 
npon  which  all  the  older  governments  had  been  founded. 
The  practice  of  sending  mere  favorites  or  influential  par- 
tisans—after the  fashion  of  tlie  old  colonial  period — even  to 
the  humblest  offices  in  colonies  or  foreign  ports,  has  ceased 
on  the  part  of  every  European  nation.  That  vicious  old 
practice  survives  only  in  the  unnatural  form  in  which  it  has 
been  grafted  upon  our  institutions.  JSTot  only  have  the  older 
governments  placed  better  men  in  office,  but  they  have 
brought  them  under  sterner  rules  of  discipline  and  duty. 
They  "hold  their  subordinate  officers  under  stricter  control, 
and  invent  new  methods  for  guiding  them  more  closely,  and 
for  inspecting  them  with  less  trouble. "  ..."  They  do  every- 
thing with  more  order,  more  celerity,  and  at  less  expense.'" 
It  is  only  in  the  light  of  such  considerations  that  we  can 
take  in  the  full  significance  of  the  efforts  and  methods 
through  which,  in  later  years,  the  older  nations  have 
invigorated  and  armed  themselves  for  the  grand  international 
competition  of  races  and  States  for  the  commerce  and  domi- 
nation of  the  world.  Some  of  the  practical  effects  of  this  new 
policy  have  been  pointed  out,  and  I  cannot  enlarge  upon 
them.  It  is  for  us  to  consider  whether  we  can  maintain  our 
prestige  and  the  honor  of  republican  institutions  by  contin- 
uing to  draw  our  official  force  only  from  the  liotbeds  of  par- 
tisan influence,  and  only  by  the  selfish  and  secret  methods 
of  patronage  and  favoritism  ;  while  every  other  leading  nation 
plants  itself  upon  common  justice  and  invites,  by  its  competi- 
tions, and  rewards  by  selections  for   its  service,  the   highest 

'  "Democracy  in  America,"  by  Do  Tocquevillc,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  378,  379. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  421 

capacity  and  character  in  its  citizenship.  The  facilities  of 
modern  communications  are  so  great  that  the  comj^etitions  of 
nations  living  on  different  continents  are  almost  as  direct  and 
rapid,  in  all  the  inland  towns  and  along  every  shore  of  the 
ocean,  as  they  were  in  earher  times  between  rival  villages 
of  the  same  district.  Who  can  doubt  that  the  question  of 
better  ministers,  consuls,  and  commercial  agents  has  become 
as  decisive  of  the  industries  as  it  certainly  has  of  the  prestige 
and  the  honor  of  rival  nations  ? ' 

But  however  great  the  need  of  reform,  our  attempts  must 
be  proportioned  to  the  virtue  and  intelligence  which  we  have  for 
their  support.  To  attempt  too  much  may  be  for  a  time  as 
unfortunate  as  to  attempt  too  little.  The  moral  tone  of  the 
American  people,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  British  people, 
and  their  relative  patriotism,  intelligence,  and  readiness  to 
make  efforts  for  the  general  welfare,  are  not  only  intrin- 
sically very  interesting,  but  they  have  a  direct  bearing  upon 
the  applicability  of  British  precedents  in  the  United  States. 
I  have  no  space  for  their  discussion.  AVhile  it  is  unques- 
tionable that  public  opinion  demands  higher  qualifications 
for  office  and  has  secured  greater  purity  of  administration 
in  Great  Britain  than  in  this  country,  I  am  by  no  means  con- 
vinced that  the  moral  standard  or  intelligence,  averaged  over 
the  whole  field  of  life,  is  higher  there  than  here.  The  expla- 
nation of  this  apparent  contradiction  seems  to  be  this  :  More 
attention  to  the  subject  of  administration  and  the  enforce- 
ment of  better  methods  for  a  series  of  years,  in  Great  Britain, 
have  made  public  opinion  more  exacting  and  critical  and  raised 
all  official  life  to  a  relatively  higher  plane.  Whereas  in  this 
country,  the  neglect  of  administration  by  our  Statesmen,  and 
the  use  of  corrupting  metliods  by  the  partisan  class  which 
has  controlled  the  government,  have  caused  the  charac- 
ter of  official  life  to  fall  below  the  general  average  of 
morality  in  other  matters.  In  other  words,  in  Great  Brit- 
ain the  public  service  and  official  life  generally  are  so  pure 
as  to  be  more  in  danger  from  without  than  from  hny 
source  of  corruption  within  themselves  ;  while  with  us  cor- 
ruption is  most  developed  in  official  circles  and  tends  to  flow 
out  from  politics  and  official  life  upon  private  life.  That  the 
'  See  Appendix  B. 


422  CIVIL   SERVICE    IX   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

j)artisan  and  office-liolding  class  is  generally  the  more  de- 
moralized and  distrusted  class  of  our  people,  of  corresponding 
intelligence,  will,  I  think,  hardly  be  questioned.  That  the 
facts  are  quite  othei'wise  in  Great  Britain  could  be  made  very 
clear,  but  I  can  do  no  more  than  allude  to  a  few  facts  bearing 
on  the  subject. 

The  purchase  of  commissions  in  the  British  army,  as  it 
prevailed  until  1871,  spoke  as  significantly  from  one  plane 
of  life  as  the  buying  and  selling  of  Church  "livings"  still 
speak  from  another  plane  of  life. '  It  has  been  shown  that 
fewer  crimes  are  committed  in  Great  Britain  than  in  this 
country.  But  the  fact  of  a  lower  rate  of  criminality  among 
a  people  may  perhaps  be  equally  explainable  on  the  tlieory 
of  less  disposition  to  break  the  laws  or  of  more  certainty 
and  a  prompter  justice  in  the  imposition  of  punishment. 
Now,  nothing  in  British  administration  is  more  admirable  than 
the  purity,  dignity,  and  ability  to  be  found  in  her  courts  of  jus- 
tice of  every  grade  ;  and  her  most  thoughtful  writers  have 
borne  testimony  to  the  law-abiding  spirit  of  the  American 
people.  ' '  Even  in  America,  the  most  law-loving  of  countries, " 
.  .  .  there  is  "  a  regard  for  law,  such  as  no  great  people  have 
yet  evinced,  and  infinitely  surpassing  ours.""  And  what 
higher  evidence  can  there  be  of  the  relative  moral  tone  of  two 
peoples  than  their  comparative  disposition  to  obey  the  laws 
which  their  own  representatives  have  made  ?  It  would  seem, 
therefore,  that  good  administration  has  reduced  criminality  to 
a  ratio  below  that  of  the  United  States,  even  among  a  people 
more  inclined  than  Americans  to  set  the  laws  at  defiance. 
These  conclusions,  and  more  especially  the  inference  that  good 
methods  of  administration  in  Great  Britain  have  raised  the 
morality  of  public  life  above  that  of  private  life,  may,  how- 
ever, be  directly  supported  by  British  writers.  "  As  we  have 
seen,  it  (private  corruption)  has  worn  its  slimy  way  from  the 
Butler  to  the  Broker  class.  Almost  every  man  who  has 
patronage  has  also  his  price.  .  .  .  Shall  we  now  at- 
tempt by  legislative  enactment  to  stamp  it  out  and  brand  the 
briber  and  bribed  with  infamy,  or  shall  we  wait  yet  longer,  until 
physicians,  the  bar,  our  Jtidges,  our  civil  servants  at  hoine,  in 

>  See  ante,  p  278  to  281. 

*  Bagehot  on  the  English  Constitution,  pp.  53  and  289. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  423 

India,  and  the  Colonies,  government  inspectors  of  mines  and 
factories,  our  very  ministers  of  State,  are  tampered  with  f "  ' 

I  cannot  think  it  would  occur  to  an  American  writer  to  thus 
represent  the  stream  of  corruption,  in  his  own  country,  as 
having  its  springs  in  the  regions  of  private  business,  and  as 
flowing  thence  to  taint  pervading  virtues  in  official  Hfe  and 
poison  a  pure  domain  in  politics.  He  would  regard  the 
stream  as  flowing  the  other  waj.  If  in  these  facts  we  may- 
find  consoling  evidence  of  the  elevating  influence  of  our  insti- 
tutions and  social  life,  in  their  aggregate  effect,  ought  we  to 
be  the  less  rebuked  by  the  consideration  that,  with  at  least 
equally  good  jnaterial  out  of  which  to  construct  a  pure  and 
vigorous  administration,  and  with  far  less  obstacles  to  be 
overcome,  our  neglect  has  been  so  great  that  we  have 
fallen  far  short  of  the  achievements  of  the  older  country  ? 
The  comparison  will  not  have  its  true  significance,  if  we 
fail  to  remember  that,  by  going  back  about  the  space  of  a  sin- 
gle human  life,  we  come  upon  a  condition  the  very  reverse  in 
the  administrative  affairs  of  the  two  countries — upon  a  time 
when,  in  this  country,  respected  and  capable  men  filled  all  the 
public  places,  and  distrust  of  officers  w^as  little  known — upon  a 
time  when,  in  Great  Britain,  there  was  official  corruption  and 
a  prostitution  of  authority  such  as  our  demagogues  now  hardly 
venture  even  to  suggest  against  their  partisan  opponents. 

To  the  other  considerations  which  give  importance  to  ad- 
ministrative abuses  this  must  be  added  :  that  they  are  the 
most  permanent  known  to  politics.  Having  their  ultimate 
source  in  the  selfishness  of  human  nature,  they  grow  wherever 
ambition,  the  love  of  gain,  or  partisan  zeal  are  not  effectively 
restrained.  Favored  by  the  imperfections  of  all  human  gov- 
ernments and  incidents  of  their  daily  operation,  they  are,  in 
their  causes,  as  abiding  as  government  itself.  It  is  in  the 
struggles  for  office,  and  the  opportunities  for  gain  in  the  exer- 
cise of  official  power,  that  selfishness,  deception,  and  partisan 
zeal  have  their  everlasting  contest  with  virtue,  patriotism,  and 
duty.  It  is  in  that  contest  that  statesmen  and  demagogues, 
patriots  and  intriguers,  the  good  citizen  and  the  venal  office 
seeker,  all  the  high  and  all  the  low  influences  of  political  life, 
meet  face  to  face,  and  by  the  balance  of  power,  for  good 
'   Westminster  Review,  article  on  Illicit  Commissions,  July,  1877. 


424  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

or  for  evil,  give  character  to  politics  and  determine  the 
morality  of  nations.  The  questions  raised  by  that  contest, 
and  the  methods  by  which  politicians  seek  their  solution, 
are  much  the  same  and  are  equally  vital  under  every  form 
of  representative  government.  From  generation  to  gen- 
eration, from  century  to  century,  partisans  and  self-seek- 
ing and  corrupt  men  of  all  sorts  employ  much  the  same 
means  to  make  office-getting  and  administration  serve  their 
ends.  If  we  go  back  over  the  administration  of  a  century, 
in  any  enlightened  State,  we  find  the  abuses  with  which 
statesmen  and  patriots  have  struggled,  if  a  little  diilerent 
in  form,  yet  in  substance  much  the  same.  Whether  a  pres- 
ident or  a  king  be  at  the  head  of  the  government,  whether 
the  higher  branch  of  the  legislature  be  elective  or  hereditary, 
make  little  difference  in  the  administrative  abuses  or  in  their 
perilous  tendency.  Our  civil  service  abuses,  as  I  have  already 
explained,  are  in  substance  but  a  repetition  of  those  of  the 
other  enlightened  nations.  As  a  people,  we  have  cherished  no 
more  complete  and  disastrous  delusion  than  that  which  has  led 
us  to  think  that  the  just  principles  of  our  constitution  and 
social  life  have  relieved  us  from  dangers  growing  out  of 
corrupt  administration.  Human  nature  has  not  been  changed 
by  republican  institutions.  Good  government  does  not  come 
from  neglect,  from  conceit,  or  from  party  zeal,  even  in  a  re- 
public. 

If,  from  the  in v^eterate  permanency  and  peril  of  administra- 
tive abuses,  we  turn  to  the  other  great  questions  of  politics,  we 
see  that  every  generation,  every  decade,  almost  every  year, 
has  had  its  peculiar  policy,  its  temporary  interests,  its  absorb- 
ing issues,  domestic  or  foreign.  The  highway  of  progress  is 
marked  by  the  ever  changing  procession  of  subjects  each 
thought  to  be  ]3aramount  in  its  day.  Even  from  our  short  his- 
tory, a  long  list  of  forgotten  questions,  each  most  absorbing 
for  a  time,  could  be  gathered.  But  at  all  times  and  every- 
where, the  questions — How  to  bring  honest  and  capable  men 
into  office,  high  and  low  ?  How  to  secure  economy  and 
fidelity  in  administration  ?  How  to  prevent  official  authority 
from  being  prostituted  to  partisan  and  selfish  ends  ? — have 
been  subjects  of  serious  and  increasing  difficulty.  Whether 
considered  in  that  light  or  not,  they  have  really  been  problems 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN.  42j 

tlian  M^iich  none  have  at  once  so  constantly  and  so  vitally 
concerned  the  prosperity  and  the  morality  of  the  nation. 
AVhat  other  questions,  among  all  those  which  have  arisen  in 
our  politics,  have  so  steadily  groAvn  in  importance  ?  "What 
question  to-day  presents  issues  more  difficult  of  solution,  or 
which  are  the  source  of  more  anxiety  to  patriotic  and 
thoughtful  citizens,  than  this  ?  How  can  we  so  administer  the 
government  that  its  daily  operations  shall  not  develop  infidelity 
and  corruption,  fatal  alike  to  all  the  virtues  of  official  and  i>vi- 
vate  life  ? 

However  the  past  may  be  excused,  we  can  hardly  find  in 
the  future  a  justification  for  a  continued  neglect  of  the  sci- 
ence of  administration  which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  states- 
men of  every  other  enlightened  nation  have  made  one  of  the 
the  paramount  studies  of  politics.  For  surely  it  is  not  the  in- 
crease of  wealth,  the  growth  of  great  cities,  or  the  advance  of 
population  that  will  purify  the  fountains  of  virtue  or  make 
the  problems  of  government  easier.  When,  perhaps  in  the 
lifetime  of  persons  now  living,  the  residents  of  Washington 
holding  places  in  the  public  service  shall  exceed  her  present 
population  ;  when  the  country  shall  contain  three  hundred 
millions  of  people,  of  which  the  names  of  half  a  million 
shall  be  upon  the  national  pay-rolls  ;  when  the  commerce  and 
population  of  San  Francisco  shall  far  exceed  the  present  pop- 
ulation and  commerce  of  New  York  ;  when  the  national 
revenues  shall  be  tenfold  their  present  amount,  and  consuls 
and  commercial  agents  shall  discharge  their  duties  in  Central 
Africa  and  in  cities  upon  the  upper  waters  of  the  Amazon — 
can  we  expect,  if  our  neglect  shall  continue,  that  the  perils 
of  a  spoils  system  of  office  will  be  less,  or  that  the  difficulties 
of  its  removal  will  be  diminished  ? 

But  it  is  not  merely  such  natural  increase  and  expansion 
which  will  continue  to  make  that  science  more  profound  and 
its  neglect  more  disastrous.  It  is  in  the  order  of  a  growing 
civilization  that  the  fmictions  of  official  life  must  become 
more  and  more  various,  delicate,  and  difficult.  "  The 
authority  of  government  has  not  only  spread  throughout  the 
sphere  of  all  existing  powers,  .  .  .  but  it  goes  further 
and  invades  the  domain  heretofore  reserved  to  private  inde- 
pendence.    A  multitude  of  actions,  which  were  formerly  be- 


426    .  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

yond  tlie  control  of  public  administration,  have  been  sub- 
jected to  that  control  in  our  time,  and  the  number  of  them  is 
constantly  increasing. "  '  A  larger  and  still  larger  number  of 
officers  are  required,  and  their  neglect  and  incompetency  more 
and  more  tend  to  become  evils  of  sei'ious  magnitude.  The 
railroad,  the  steamship,  and  the  telegraph  ;  the  system  of 
national  banks  and  the  new  departments  of  agriculture,  edu- 
cation, and  public  health  ;  the  life-saving  and  the  Marine  Hos- 
pital service  ;  the  money  order  system,  and  the  light-house,  the 
internal  revenue  and  the  postal  administration,  greatly  extended 
— are  but  illustrations  of  the  growth  of  administrative  func- 
tions created  or  enlarged  during  the  present  generation.  In 
the  cities  ^  and  in  the  States,  this  growth  has  hardly  been  less 
than  under  the  Federal  Government  ;  nor  has  it  been  less  in 
other  countries  than  in  our  own.^  Year  by  year,  the  prosperity 
and  morality  of  every  enlightened  people  become,  in  a  still 
greater  degree,  dependent  upon  the  character  and  capacity  of 
those  who  fill  their  places  of  public  trust.  In  no  country  is 
this  more  true  than  in  the  United  States,  where  the  very 
structure  of  the  government  frequently  produces  a  complica- 
tion of  official  duties,  by  reason  of  the  division  of  authority 
over  great  subjects  between  the  nation  and  the  States." 

With  so  great  evils  upon  us  from  the  neglect  of  administra- 
tion in  the  past,  and  still  greater  evils  thus  threatening  us  if  that 
neglect  shall  continue  in  the  future,  it  would  hardly  seem  pos- 
sible that  the  subject  should  long  fail  to  take  its  proper  place 
in  the  serious  reflections  cf  American  statesmen.  How,  in- 
deed, can  a  man  be  called  a  statesman  who  is  not  well  versed 
in  the  world's  wisdom  as  to  the  best  means  of  carrying  for- 

'  "  Democracy  in  America,"  vol.  2,  p.  370. 

^  Popular  education  and  sanitary  laws  vastly  extended  ;  parks,  gas-works, 
and  water-works  ;  the  more  complete  supervision  of  prisons,  of  charity 
and  workshops  in  the  interests  of  health  and  safety,  are  familiar  examples. 

'  "  I  assert  that  there  is  no  country  in  Europe  in  which  the  public  admin- 
istration has  not  become  .  .  .  more  inquisitive  and  minute ;  .  .  it 
regulates  more  undertakings  and  gains  a  firmer  footing  every  day  about, 
above,  and  around  all  persons,  to  assist,  to  advise,  and,  to  coerce  them. — 
"  Democracy  in  America,"  vol.  2,  p.  377. 

■*  At  this  moment,  the  embarrassments  connected  with  the  subjects  of  the 
public  health  and  elections  present  significant  examples.  In  no  country  is 
there  so  great  a  need  of  a  superior  class  of  officers  to  deal  with  these  subjects. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  427 

■ward  with  steadiness  and  fidelity  the  vast  administration  of 
his  country,  upon  which  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  its 
people  so  greatly  depend  ?  For  self-seeking  politicians — for 
men  with  whom  statesmanship  means  the  manipulation  of 
parties — for  any  citizen  without  faith  in  public  virtue  and  the 
courage  needed  to  stand  for  duty  and  the  general  welfare 
against  the  ignorance  and  the  blind  majority  of  the  hour,  the 
subject  can  have  few  attractions.  But  those  thoughtful  citizens 
whose  hearts  are  warmed  by  a  true  love  of  their  country, 
who  are  humiliated  as  they  see  that  country  failing  to  rise  to 
its  true  dignity  before  the  world,  who  comprehend  that, 
under  better  methods,  worth  and  ability  of  a  higher  order 
could  be  made  to  elevate  politics  and  official  life — will  be 
drawn  to  the  subject  by  all  the  strength  of  interest,  patriotic 
duty,  and  national  jiride.  They  feel  that  the  United  States 
stand  before  the  world  as  the  original  and  the  noblest  embodi- 
ment of  the  republican  ideal  in  government.  As  the  oldest 
and  the  most  powerful  republican  nation — as  the  example  to 
which  young  repubhcs  turn  for  wisdom  and  experience — the 
character  of  public  administration  in  the  United  States  does 
not  concern  merely  the  growing  millions  of  her  own  peo^jle, 
but  the  republican  cause  and  the  fate  of  free  institutions  in 
every  quarter  of  the  globe  now  and  for  ages  to  come. 
xSeed  we  fear  that  this  generation  of  Americans  will  supply 
patriots  who  will  worthily  lead  in  the  reform  of  the  civil  ser- 
vice of  their  country  ?  Are  not  great  masses  of  the  people 
ready  to  turn  away  from  the  politicians  and  to  follow  such 
leaders  ?  Can  it  be  doubted  that,  if  tlie  true  methods  of 
reform  were  once  brought  clearly  before  the  American  people, 
they  would  give  those  methods  a  support  as  vigorous  and 
enlightened  as  that  extended  to  them  by  the  people  of  Great 
Britain  ?  Surely  we  are  not  to  be  pennanently  known  as 
"  the  people  who  boast  most  over  their  form  of  government, 
and  groan  most  over  the  abuses  of  their  administration."'. 
We  are  not  degenerate  sons  without  the  patriotism  or  the 
courage  of  our  fathers.  This  generation,  which  has  made  the 
greatest  sacrifices  for  liberty  and  justice  recorded  in  human 
annals,  must  surely  have  the  moral  elevation  needed  for  the 
removal  of  any  abuses  that  can  be  developed  in  administering 
'  The  Saturday  Eerievc. 


428  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

the  government  whose  righteousness^ and  honor  it  has  greatly 
exalted.  We  are  justlj  proud  of  the  stability  of  a  govern- 
ment, which  has  been  less  changed  in  the  past  century,  and 
bids  fair  to  be  less  changed  in  the  next  century,  than  any  gov- 
ernment, in  Europe.  Its  safety  now  depends  upon  the  virtue 
and  wisdom  of  its  daily  administration.  Wliile  nearly  every 
European  country  is  agitated  by  hopes  and  fears,  threatening 
the  very  framework  of  the  State,  no  expectation  of  adiange 
of  structure  colors  our  estimate  of  the  future.  Our  fate  must 
turn  upon  our  capacity  to  administer  institutions  which  we  do 
not  wish  to  abandon,  and  which  we  cannot  expect,  by  any 
radical  change,  to  improve.  We  are  for  those  reasons  all  the 
more  free,  and  we  have  resting  upon  us  a  duty  all  the  more 
serious,  to  speedily  solve  our  great  problem — that  of  making 
our  administration  worthy  of  our  constitution  and  our  social 
life.  If  the  j)resent  generation  is  too  poorly  instructed  in  the 
tnie  methods  of  government  to  act  upon  the  higher  experi- 
ence of  the  leading  European  States,  then  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
who  teach — in  whatever  grade,  from  the  school  to  the  univer- 
sity— to  take  care  that  the  next  generation  be  wiser  in  the 
knowledge  of  what  so  deeply  concerns  the  character  and  sta- 
bility of  the  nation  —  to  make  it  appear  that  republics  are  not 
hostile  to  statesmanship,  to  education,  or  to  official  virtue.  No 
other  knowledge  will  compensate  for  ignorance  as  to  the  best 
means  of  securing  capacity  and  fidelity  in  public  administra- 
tion. Xo  amount  of  scholarship  will  cover  the  disgrace  to 
republican  institutions  of  allowing  the  world  to  believe  that 
rei^ublics  must  fall  below  monarcliies  in  bringing  high  character 
and  ability  into  places  of  public  trust.  In  no  other  way  can 
the  prestige  and  influence  of  such  institutions  be  so  much  ad- 
vanced in  the  world  as  by  the  United  States  making  it  mani- 
fest to  the  nations  that  a  great  republic  seeks  and  secures,  quite 
as  surely  as  the  most  enlightened  monarchy,  the  full  measure 
of  official  worth  and  ability  which  good  administration  re- 
quires. To  attain  such  results  is,  1  repeat,  the  great  problem 
of  American  politics — the  paramount  duty  of  American 
patriots.  And  I  trust  I  may  be  pardoned  for  adding  that 
the  hope  of  contributing,  in  some  small  measure,  to  their  accom- 
plishment, has  given  me  the  courage  to  submit  this  volume  to 
the  public  judgment. 


APPEIs"DIX  A. 

OPINIONS   CONCERNING   THE    BRITISH    CIVIL    SERVICE. 

I.  Letter,  Sik  Charles  Treveltan. 

Open  competition  adapted  to  United  States.— Few  supported  reform 
at  first.— How  it  gained  in  Parliament.— Members  relieved  from 
importunit3\ — Better  men  secured  under  new  system.— Corrup- 
tion arrested. — Efficiency  of  service  increased. — Promotion  for 
merit  brought  about. — Popular  estimate  and  self-respect  of  the 
service  advanced.— Education  promoted.— The  new  system  per- 
manent. 

II.  Letter,  John  Bright. 

New  system  approved. — Return  to  oil  system  impossible.— Corrup- 
tion prevented.— Reform  in  the  United  States  desired  by  its 
friends  abroad. 

III.  Letter,  United  States  Consul  at  Liverpool. 

IV.  Letter,  United  States  Consul-General. 

V.  Letter,  Mr.  Moran,  for.merly  Secretary  Legation,  London. 

VI.  Letter,  Mr.  Hoppin,  now  Secretary  Legation,  London. 
VII.  Letter,  Edwards  Pierrepont,  Minister  to  Great  Britain. 

VIII.  Letter,  J.  S.  Morgan,  Esq.,  of  London. 

Letter,  Hon.  Hugh  McCulloch,  op  London. 

I  HAVE  not  wished  that  any  important  conchision  reached  in 
this  volume  should,  to  any  needless  extent,  rest  upon  my  own 
opinion  alone,  and  some  of  the  points  involved  are  of  such 
a  nature  that  the  opinions  of  competent  observers  are,  per- 
haps, the  highest  authority  that  can  be  offered.  Both  these 
considerations  have  induced  me  to  present  in  this  form  the 
views  of  several  gentlemen — some  of  them  Englishmen  and 
some  of  them  Americans — some  representing  official  life  in 
various  grades  and  some  of  them  only  distinguished  in  private 
life  ;  but  each  of  them  has  had  exceptional  opportunities  of 
forming  correct  conclusions,  and  their  views  will  probably  be 
thought  entitled  to  weight.  The  portion  of  any  letter  which 
28 


430  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

has  been  here  omitted  is  immaterial  to  the  purpose  of  this 
Appendix,  and  neither  in  such  portion  nor  in  any  other  letter 
received,  but  not  here  referred  to,  were  any  views  expressed 
contrary  to  those  herein  set  forth.  I  give  at  length  the  letter 
of  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  (formerly  "  The  Permanent  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury, ' '  and  one  of  the  two  persons  selected  by 
the  British  Government  in  1853  to  report  upon  the  best 
method  of  reform),  because  of  its  great  historical  interest. 

I.  Letter  from  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  : 

Bkaemore,  August  20,  1877. 

Dear,  Sir  :  Your  letter  of  the  14th  has  reached  rae  at  this  remote 
place,  and  I  much  regi*et  that  I  cannot  at  present  personally  confer 
with  you,  for  I  have  long  been  struck  by  the  singular  suitableness  of 
our  new  but  well-tried  institution  of  making  public  appointments  by 
open  competition,  for  the  correction  of  some  of  the  worst  results  of 
the  United  States  political  system,  and  would  gladly  help  to  place 
you  in  possession  of  the  mature  fruit  of  our  experience.   .   .   . 

Considering  the  practical  nature  of  the  English  character,  which 
abhors  theoretical  innovations  based  upon  a  priori  reasoning,  and 
reluctantly  accepts  even  those  changes  which  have  been  proved  by 
experience  to  be  desirable,  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  success  of 
the  system  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  all  real  opposition  to  it  has 
long  since  died  away,  and,  step  by  step,  it  has  been  extended  to 
almost  every  branch  of  the  service  in  its  most  advanced  and  only 
efficient  form  of  perfectly  open  competition. 

It  may  be  useful  to  the  President  to  know  one  feature  of  its  early 
history  :  the  change  was  made  by  persons  conversant  with  public 
affairs  from  a  practical  perception  of  its  necessity,  but  these  early 
supporters  of  it  mi<;ht  he  counted  upon  the  fingers,  and  if  the  matter 
had  been  put  to  the  vote  in  London  society,  or  the  clubs,  or  even  in 
Parliament  itself  Inj  secret  voting,  the  new  system  would  have  been 
rejected  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  Nevertheless,  whenever 
adverse  motions  were  made  in  the  House  of  Commons  we  always  had 
a  majority  in  favor  of  the  plan.  This  at  first  caused  us  some  sur- 
prise ;  but  on  mvestigation  the  case  turned  out  to  be  thus  :  Large  as 
the  number  of  persons  who  profited  by  the  former  system  of  patron- 
age were,  those  who  were  left  out  in  the  cold  were  still  larger,  and 
these  included  some  of  the  best  classes  of  our  population — busy  pro- 
fessional persons  of  every  kind,  lawyers,  ministers  of  religion  of  every 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  431 

persuasion,  schoolmasters,  farmers,  shopkeepers,  etc.  Tliesc  rapidly 
took  in  the  idea  of  the  new  institution,  and  they  gladly  accepted  it 
as  a  valuable  additional  privilege.  We  were  especially  interested  and 
amused  at  the  sudden  popularity  which  the  system  acquired  in  Ire- 
land, where  "  the  competition,"  as  they  called  it,  was  regarded  as  a 
very  preferable  alternative  to  the  old  jobbery.  You  will  now  under- 
stand that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  individual  sentiments  of 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  they  received  such  pressing 
letters  from  their  constituents  as  obliged  them  to  vote  atraight. 

But  all  the,  best  members  soon  felt  that,  by  the  abolition  of 
patronage,  they  had  been  relieved  from  a  degrading  yoke.  While  it 
was  customary  to  place  situations  in  the  revenue  and  other  depart- 
ments at  their  disposal  for  distribution  among  their  constituents,  they 
were  obliged,  in  self-defence,  to  dance  attendance  on  the  Patronage 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  besides  having  to  carry  on  a  large  and 
annoying  correspondence  with  their  constituents.  From  this  double 
bondage  they  were  at  once  liberated  when  the  junior  appointments 
were  opened  to  competition  ;  and  as  all  members  were  placed  on  the 
same  footing,  they  were  under  no  disadvantage  in  their  elections  in 
consequence  of  the  change. 

The  most  searching  and  vital  improvement  arising  from  the  aboli- 
tion of  patronage  is  that  it  has  purified  the  constituencies  and  in- 
creased the  independence  and  public  feeling  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, ^ery  borough  and  county,  except  a  few  of  the  largest,  had 
its  local  manager  on  either  side — a  banker,  brewer,  or  solicitor — who 
purchased  the  vote  and  support  of  the  leading  men  by  a  judicious 
application  of  the  loaves  and  fishes.  The  corruption  so  engendered 
was  more  constant  and  general  than  the  bribery  carried  on  by  means 
of  money,  and  it  was  also  more  influential,  in  the  degree  in  which  a 
provision  Jor  life  for  a  son  or  some  other  person  in  whom  a  voter  was 
interested  was  more  valuable  than  the  customary  five-pound  note. 
Both  constituents  and  members  now  have  to  look,  not  to  what  they 
can  get,  but  to  what  it  is  their  duty  to  do.  At  any  rate,  they  must 
now  seek  to  promote  their  interests  in  some  larger  and  more  public 
way  than  by  obtaining  appointments  for  themselves  or  their  friends. 

As  regards  the  effect  of  the  change  upon  the  efficiency  of  the 
administrative  service,  the  ordinary  practice  was  to  place  the  fool  of 
the  family  in  the  civil,  and  the  wild,  idle,  unmanageable  youth  in  the 
military,  service,  for  the  plain  reason  that  while  this  was  a  provision 
for  life  for  then:i,  they  were  not  so  fit  as  their  brothers  to  compete 
with  others  in  the  open  professions.     The  promotion  within  the  civil 


432  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

service  was,  for  the  most  part,  conducted  on  the  same  principle  of 
patronage,  and  in  the  military  service  on  a  mixed  principle  of  pur- 
chase and  patronage.  The  civil  service  also  was  held  in  low  estima- 
tion by  the  public,  who  regarded  it  as  a  corpus  vile  for  political  job- 
bers ;  and  this  reacted  in  an  injurious  manner  upon  the  esprit  de 
corps  of-  the  civil  servants.  Now  both  civil  and  military  officers  are 
appointed  on  the  ground  of  superior  ability  and  attainment,  with  an 
indirect  guarantee  for  good  moral  qualities  (inasmuch  as  superior 
cultivation  and  attainments  is  to  be  acquired  only  by  industry,  self- 
denial,  and  a  preference  of  the  future  for  the  present),  besides  direct 
evidence  to  moral  chai'acter  from  the  persons  best  able  to  testify  to 
it.  As  the  persons  appointed  have  no  party  connections,  and  are 
generally  unknown  to  the  political  chiefs,  there  is  now  nothing  to 
prevent  their  being  promoted  according  to  qualification  and  merit, 
wh:ch  is  the  key  to  administrative  efficiency.  Lastly,  the  reproach 
of  a  corrupt  origin  has  been  removed  from  the  civil  service,  and  the 
members  of  it  have  been  elevated  in  the  estimation  of  themselves  and 
others. 

The  same  change  which  has  increased  the  efficiency  of  the  civil  and 
military  services  has  given  a  marvellous  stimulus  to  education.  For- 
merly boys  intended  for  any  branch  of  the  public  service  had  no 
motive  to  exert  themselves,  because,  however  idle  they  might  be, 
they  were  certain  to  get  an  appointment.  Now,  from  their  earliest 
years,  boys  know  that  their  future  depends  upon  themselves,  and  a 
new  spirit  of  activity  has  supervened.  The  opening  of  the  civil  and 
military  services,  in  its  influence  upon  national  education,  is  equiva- 
lent to  a  hundred  thousand  scholai'ships  and  exhibitions  of  the  most 
valuable  kind — because,  unlike  such  rewards  in  general,  they  are  for 
life — offered  for  the  encouragement  of  youthful  learning  and  good 
conduct  in  every  class  of  the  community. 

All  this  luis  led  to  a  great  improvement  in  the  efficiency  of  the 
administrative  service.  That  such  is  the  case  is  proved  by  the 
general  acceptance  of  the  new  national  institution,  so  that  no  sane 
person  has  any  idea  of  abrogating  it  and  reviving  the  former  state  of 
things,  but,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  a  constant  movement  towards 
extending  it  in  its  entirety  to  the  few  remaining  branches  of  the 
service  to  which  it  has  not  yet  been  fully  applied.   .   .   . 

You  ask  as  to  the  effect  of  the  change  upon  *'  official  morality." 
Official  coiTuption  was  nc>t_one  of  the  faults  of  the  old  system.' 

'  The  "  old  system,"  as  here  referred  to,  is  not  the  "  old  system"  as  the 
phrase  is  generally  used  in  this  volume,  where  it  refers  to  the  state  of  things 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN.  433 

Trustworthiness  mainly  depends   upon  a   secure  tenure  of  office,  and   |«C^ 
that  has  long  been  abundantly  provided  for.     The  rule  that  the  first 
appearance  of  official  delinquency  should  be  thoroughly  investigated         ^ 
and  adequately  dealt  with,  has  been  and  still  is  fully  enforced.     The 
plan  now  acted  upon  is  to  have  fewer  of  the  higher  class  of  civil 
servants,  and  to  pay  them  better  from  the  first,  getting  the  copying,   i 
care  of  papers,  and  other  less  intellectual  work  done  by  a  cheaper  jl . 
and  more  ordinarily  educated  class,  which  has  a  tendency  both  to  j\  \ 
promote  economy  and  to  encourage  fidelity  and  exertion  on  the  part/|    > 
of  the  most  trusted  servants  by  making    their  appointments  more 
valuable  to  them.   ... 

Believe  me,  very  truly  yours,  Ch.  Trevelyan. 

D.  B.  Eaton,  E>q.,  etc.,  etc. 

In  a  subsequent  letter  to  the  author  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan 
says  : 

*'  You  cannot  lay  too  much  stress  upon  the  fact  that  the  making  of 
public  appointments  by  open  competition  has  been  accepted  by  all 
our  political  parties,  and  that  there  is  no  sign  of  any  movement 
against  it  from  any  quarter. " 


II.  Letter  from  John  Bright  : 

London,  April  29,  1874. 

Dear  Sir  :  I  am  sorry  I  have  be<|n  so  long  in  replying  to  your 
letter,  and  now  I  do  not  feel  that  I  can  say  much  that  will  be  of  use 
to  you. 

The  opening  of  our  civil  service  has  met  with  general  approval,  and. 
after  the  experience  of  some  years  it  would  be  impossible  to  go  back 
to  the  old  system.  The  present  plan  is  one  which  is  felt  to  be  more 
just  to  all  classes,  and  it  is  calculated  to  supply  more  capable  men  for 
the  various  departments  of  the  public  service. 

You  are  doubtless  aware  that  appointments  with  us  are  to  a  large 
extent  of  a  permanent  character.  No  changes  in  persons  employed 
in  government  offices,  in' the  "Customs,- excise,  post-office,  and  tele- 
graph departments,  tak6  place  on  a  change  of  government,  and  thus 
we  avoid  a  vast  source  of  disturbance  and  corruption  which  would  be 
opened  if  the  contrary  plan  were  adopted. 

prior  to  1800  br  1820.  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  means  bj'  the  old  system  only 
that  which  immediately  precedetl  1853,  which  was  in  large  part  removed 
at  that  time,  and  which  was  abolished  in  1870. 


434  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

In  these  days,  when  so  much  is  done  by  governments,  and  so  many 
persons  are  employed  by  them,  it  seems  absolutely  necessary  to  take 
precautions  against  the  selection  of  incompetent  men,  and  against  the 
corruption  which  under  the  purest  administration  is  always  a  menac- 
ing evil. 

Your  proposed  reform  is  a  great  undertaking.  I  hope  the  good 
sense  of  your  people  will  enable  you  to  complete  it.  All  the  friends 
of  your  country  in  other  nations  will  congratulate  you  in  your  success. 
I  have  directed  to  be  forwarded  to  you  some  of  our  Parliamentary 
publications,  that  you  may  know  the  latest  facts  connected  with  what 
is  doing  here  in  the  matter  of  our  civil  service. 

I  am,  with  great  respect,  yours  very  sincerely, 

John  Bright. 
D.  B.  Eaton,  Esq.,  etc.,  etc. 


III.  Mr.  Faircliild,  tlien  United  States  Consul  at  Liverpool, 
wrote  tlie  author,  under  date  of  October  8tli,  1877,  as  follows  : 

"  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  civil  service  of  this  country  is  held 
in  very  high  estimation  by  the  people  here.  .  .  .  There  is  a  pervad- 
ing feeling  of  confidence  in  and  satisfaction  with  the  civil  service  as  a 
whole,  and  1  am  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  such  confidence  and 
satisfaction  are  well  founded.  .  .  .  Not  that  it  is  considered  by  all 
as  an  entirely  perfect  system  and  incapable  of  improvement,  but  that 
it  is  held  to  be  so  perfect  in  its  workings  and  results  as  to  give  great 
satisfaction  to  the  people.  During  my  residence  here  I  do  not  now 
remember  to  have  heard  of  but  three  cases  where  men  in  the  service 
have  been  found  guilty  of  financial  dishonesty.  .  .  .  The  service 
being  non-partisan,  they  were  treated  just  exactly  the  same  as  any 
other  criminal  would  have  been,  .  .  .  and  the  crimes  of  the  individ- 
uals were  not  charged  to  either  of  the  great  political  parties.   ..." 


IV.  General  Badeau,  the  United  States  Consul-General  in 
Great  Britain,  under  date  of  November  1st,  1877,  M^rote  the 
author  as  follows  : 

**  .  .  .  That  the  general  opinion  in  England — and  I  believe  the  facts 
carry  out  such  belief — is  that  the  inland  revenue  service,  the  customs 
service,  and  post-office  department  are  efficient,  and  that  every  con- 
fidence is  placed  i]i  Ihc  administration  of  tho.se  services  ;  and  in  very 


CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN".  435 

few  instances  is  that  confidence  ever  abused.  If  an  abuse  of  tho  con- 
fidence of  the  Government  has  somotimes  occurred,  it  has  been  and  is 
among  the  inferior  officers  of  the  postal  departments,  such  as  letter- 
carriers  and  sorters  ;  but  in  the  very  large  number  of  these  offices  the 
percentage  of  crime  is  very  small.  I  know  of  no  scandals  in  these 
departments  that  are  spoken  of  at  all,  and  I  am  decidedly  of  opinion 
that  one  of  the  greatest  causes  of  the  absence  of  scandals  and  of  the 
honesty  of  officials  is  the  fact  that  after  a  short  scries  of  years  each 
officer  becomes  entitled  to  a  pension  which  continues  for  life  and 
increases  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  years  of  service  and  the 
efficiency  of  the  officer.  ..." 


Y.  Mr,  Moran,  now  United  States  Minister  at  Lishon,  but 
for  many  years  the  Secretary  of  Legation  in  Great  Britain,  uses 
th^  language,  in  a  letter  to  the  author  dated  January  26tli, 
1878:  "I  fully  share  your  views  of  the  efficiency  of  the 
revenue  and  postal  services  of  Great  Britain  and  their  freedom 
from  corruption.  These  views  of  mine  are  based  upon  the 
observation  of  years.  The  causes  are  not  far  to  seek.  Men 
are  selected  for  these  services  because  of  their  fitness,  are  fairly 
^aid^are_only^removable  for  cause,  and  can  always  look  for- 
ward to  a  pension  when  incapacitated  by  labor  or  old  age.* 
Both  services  are  thoroughly  efficient,  and  there  have  been  no 
great  scandals  attached  to  either  service  in  my  time.  Delin- 
quencies occasionally  occur  among  the  post-office  officials  of 
minor  grades,  but  these  are  invariably  punished.  On  the 
whole,  the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain  is,  in  my  opinion,  the 
best  in  the  world,  and  worthy  of  imitation." 

VI.  Mr.  Iloppin,  who  succeeded  Mr.  Moran  as  Secretary  of 
Legation  in  Great  Britain,  says,  in  a  letter  to  the  author,  that 
*'  During  the  whole  period  of  my  stay  here  I  do  not  remem- 
ber to  have  seen  in  the  papers  any  charge  of  peculation  or 
improprieties  of  any  sort  against  any  permanent  official.  I 
presume  the  more  closely  I  should  inquire,  the  more  unani- 
mous I  should  find  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  rules  of  the 
civil  service  as  they  exist  here  at  present. ' ' 

'  The  pensions  here  referred  to  are  the  superannuatioa  allowances  already 
explained,  which  are  little  more  than  another  name  for  a  part  of  the  salar}' 
reserved  for  declining  years. 


436  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

VIT.   Letter  from  Edwards  Pierrepont  : 

Legation  of  the  United  States,  ) 
London,  October  14,  1877.  ) 

Mv  Dear  Sir  Yours  of  September  18tb  is  received.  You 
rightly  state  that  you  understood  me  to  say  that  I  had  very  often 
asked  men  of  different  grades  of  Ufe  in  England  their  views  about 
the  honesty  of  the  administration  of  their  imperial  and  their  muni- 
cipal governments,  and  that  I  invariably  found  that  they  believed,  or 
professed  to  believe,  in  the  purity  of  such  administration. 

Since  my  interview  with  you  last  summer,  I  have  had  increased 
opportunities  to  make  further  and  more  minute  inquiries  upon  this 
subject,  of  which  I  have  carefully  availed  myself,  both  in  England 
and  Scotland  ;  and  I  have  never  found  a  person  who  did  not  profess 
to  believe  in  the  strict  honesty  of  the  administration  in  all  depart- 
ments, so  far  as  relates  to  the  expenditure  of  money.  What  the 
facts  may  he  I  have  no  means  of  knowing,  b,ut  the  belief,  or  ex- 
pressed belief,  among  all  classes  is  universal,  that  serious  corruption 
does  not  exist  either  in  the  imperial  or  municipal  administration,  and 
I  have  no  reason  to  question  the  correctness  of  this  general  opinion, 
lam,  very  truly  yours,  Edwards  Pierrepont.' 

Hon.  D.  B.  Eaton. 


YIII.  The  two  following  letters  present  tlie  subject  from 
tlie  standpoint  of  private  citizens  of  the  United  States,  who 
also  liave  had  rare  opportunities  of  forming  a  correct  judgment  : 

New  York,  November  7,  1877. 

Dear  Sir  :  I  have  received  your  favor  of  the  19th,  asking  me 
whether,  in  my  opinion,  it  was  the  general  belief  of  the  English 
people,  if  not  their  almost  universal  conviction,  that  the  civil-service 
administration  of  England,  at  least  in  the  customs  service,  in  the 
inland  revenue  service,  and  the  post-office  department,  is  efficient, 
and,  as  a  rule,  free  from  corruption. 

To  this  inquiry  I  do  not  hesitate  to  give  an-  affirmative  answer. 
Not  that  there  is  no  scandal  and  no  abuse.  These  evils,  no  doubt, 
exist  in  every  country  to  a  greater  or  less  extent ;  but  that  there  is  in 
England,  generally  speaking,  a  pervading  fidelity  and  efficiency,  with 
a  corresponding  feeling  of  confidence  and  satisfaction  on  the  part 
of  the  people  generally,  there  can,  I  think,  be  no  question  ;  and,  so 
far  as  my  observation  extends,    that  confidence  is,   as  a  rule,    well 

'  At  tliat  lime  Mr.  Pierrepont  was  United  States  Minister. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  437 

desen'ed.  If  I  were  to  particularize  any  service  it  would  be  that  of 
the  post-office,  for  the  working  of  that  branch  comes  more  nearly 
under  my  observation  ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  is  man- 
aged with  singular  efficiency  and  regard  for  public  convenience,  and, 
so  far  as  I  have  known,  with  that  freedom  from  public  scandal  which 
i?  proverbial  in  the  English  service. 

Yours  faithfully,  J.  S.  Morgan.' 

D.  B.  Eaton,  Esq. 


New  York,  Octooer  25,  1877. 
Dear  Sir  :  In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  19th  ult.  addressed  to 
me  in  London,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  opinion  I  have 
formed  of  the  administration  of  the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain  is 
a  very  favorable  one.  I  consider  it  vastly  superior  in  all  important 
respects  to  that  of  the  United  States.  It  could  hardly  fail  to  be  so, 
inasmuch  as,  while  in  that  country  the  party  in  power  may,  and  doubt- 
less does,  in  getting  offices  give  a  preference  *  to  its  friends,  no  removals 
are  made  on  political  grounds.  With  a  change  of  ministry  changes 
take  place  in  a  few  high  offices,  but  minor  offices  in  all  departments 
of  the  government  are  held  by  their  incumbents  as  long  as  the  duties 
thereof  are  properly  performed.  On  what  grounds  public  offices  in 
the  United  States  are  filled  and  vacated  is  understood  by  all  who 
have  paid  any  attention  to  the  administration  of  our  civil  service. 
I  have  spent  the  most  of  the  time  since  November,  1870,  in  London, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  I  have  ever  heard  charges  of  corruption  or 
complaints  of  inefficiency  against  the  service  in  Great  Britain.  There 
is  undoubtedly,  in  some  departments,  too  much  of  routine  and  of 
adherence  to  ancient  modes  of  transacting  business  ;  but  I  am  quite 
sure  that  the  general  administration  of  the  civil  services  in  Great 
Britain  is  approved  by  the  intelligent  and  fair-minded  men  of  both 
parties.  Liberals  and  Conservatives. 

Very  truly  yours,  U.  McCulloch.^ 

D.  B.  Eaton,  Esq. 

'  The  well-known  American  banker,  formerly  member  of  the  house  of 
George  .Peabody  &  Co.,  and  now  the  "head  of  the  banking  house  of  J.  S. 
Morgan_»fc  Coi,  of  London. 

*  This  preference,  of  course,  can  only  take  place  within  those  very  narrow 
limits  whfefe;ope;n;conipeUtion  has  not  wholly  excluded  favoritism — prob- 
ably not  extending  to  five  per  cent  of  the  clerkships,  and  only  in  a  qualified 
form  even  to  those. 

'  Late  United  States  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  but  for  some  years  past 
the  head  of  the  London  banking  house  of  McCulloch  &,  Co. 


appe:n"dix  b. 

SOME   CONFIRMATION    OF   VIEWS    EXPRESSED. 

American  opinions  of  British  administration, — Mr.  Hewitt  on  consular 
sj'stems. — American  and  British  consuls  in  China. — Our  territorial  govern- 
ments contrasted  with  the  British. — Examples  of  the  infidelity  of  both  the 
great  parties  to  reform. — How  patriotism  and  public  spirit  are  impaired. 

Perhaps  the  views  most  likely  to  be  challenged  of  any  ex- 
pressed in  this  volume  are  those  to  the  following  effect : 

(1)  That  the  superiority  of  British  administration  is  so 
manifest  as  to  be  readily  seen  and  admitted  by  competent  and 
candid  observers. 

(2)  That  our  partisan  spoils  system,  no  longer  a  mere  de- 
fect in  administration,  has  really  undermined  patriotism  at 
home   and  arrested  the  growth  of  republicanism  abroad. 

(3)  That  civil  service  reform  is  not  merely  a  mode  of  pro- 
cedure and  an  economy,  but  has  become  a  vital  question  of 
principle  and  public  morality,  involving  the  counterpoise  and 
in  no  small  degree  the  stability  of  the  government  itself. 

Upon  the  first  point,  perhaps,  any  thing  beyondwhich  is  con- 
tained in  Appendix  A.  is  superfluous.  A  whole  chapter  might 
easily  be  filled  w'ith  citations  in  support  of  the  second  and 
third  propositions. 

From  the  mass  of  evidence,  I  cite  a  few  opinions  from  per- 
sons representing  all  parties,  w^hich  seem  to  go  quite  beyond 
any  statements  in  this  volume. 

I.  ^'  The  thorough  reform  of  our  civil  service  would  sweep 
away  nearly  the  whole  brood  of  evils  which  have  so  dishonored 
the  government  at  home  and  abroad  witliin  the  last  genera- 
tion ;  and  our  party  leaders,  and  not  the  masses,  have  made 
that  service  a  disgusting  system  of  political  prostitution. " — 
International  Heview,  Jan.,  1879. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IN"  GREAT  BRITAIN.  439 

11.  "In  the  British  service,  candidates  (for  consulships) 
must  be  examined  for  admission,  and  in  all  cases  must  under- 
stand French  and  the  language  of  the  country  to  which  tliej 
are  assigned  for  duty.  .  .  Promotions  are  made  for  merit  and 
length  of  service.  .  .  They  are  never  removed  for  political 
causes  ;  nor  is  it  ever  intimated,  on  a  change  of  administration, 
that  they  are  expected  to  make  room  for  hungry  politicians. 
They  devote  themselves  for  life  to  the  promotion  of  British 
trade  and  commerce.  They  seek  out  new  avenues  for  enter- 
prise. .  .  If  time  permitted,  I  could  furnish  volumes  of  evi- 
dence of  the  zeal  and  energy  of  these  missionaries  in  the  cause 
of  British  trade.  Their  reports  and  the  report  5  of  the  attaches 
of  the  British  legations  are  models  of  patient  labor  and  treas- 
uries of  valuable  commercial  knowledge.  .  .  I  need  not  waste 
any  time  in  describing  how  our  consuls  are  appointed,  and, 
with  some  creditable  exceptions,  what  manner  of  men  they 
are  apt  to  be.  Appointed  as  a  nile  for  subordinate  and  often 
discreditable  political  services,  they  usually  have  no  qualifica- 
tions for  the  position.  They  have  no  permanence  of  tenure, 
and  hence  are  often  removed  just  as  they  have  acquired  the 
experience  to  be  useful.  The  result  is  that  it  may  almost  be 
affirmed  that  our  consular  system  as  now  organized  and  admin- 
istered, with  its  code,  offers  an  impediment  rather  than  an 
aid  to  commerce.^ ^^ 

Mr.  Hewitt  also  sketches  a  plan  for  reform  almost  iden- 
tical with  the  consular  system  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Germany — that  system  which  France,  in  becoming  a  republic, 
shows  no  disposition  to  abandon.  Of  the  French  system  Mr. 
Hewitt  says : 

"  A  most  elaborate  scheme  of  examination  is  laid  down  for  ad- 
mission to  the  permanent  consular  and  diplomatic  service.  .  . " 
' '  They  must  undei'stand  two  modern  languages  besides  their 
own."  "  The  examinations  include  .  .  international  law,  di- 
plomatic history,  statistics,  political  economy,  geography,  and 
the  languages."  "  Promotion  is  made  from  the  lower  grades 
of  the  entire  foreign  service."  This  system  he  declares  has 
been  found  so  efficient  that  it  has  remained  unclianged  for 
nearly  half  a  centur}-. 

'  Speech  Hon.  A.  S.  Hewitt,  H.  Rep.,  lltli  March,  1878.      , 


\  ! 


440  CIVIL   SERVICE    IN"   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

III.  Speaking  of  the  dissatisfaction  of  American  merchants 
in  China  with  our  consular  system,  a  writer  who  is  personally 
familiar  with  the  f acts  sajs  :  "  Thej  contrast,  for  instance, 
that  of  Great  Britain,  which  makes  the  service  so  honorable 
and  attractive  that  entrance  thereto  is  eagerly  sought  by  an 
excellent  class  of  specially  fitted  men.  .  .  This  system  they 
contrast  with  one  which  makes  it  possible  to  send  a  man  to  per- 
form commercial,  judicial,  and  almost  diplomatic  functions 
among  an  ancient,  formal,  oriental  people,  because  he  has  been 
an  efficient  '  worker '  in  the  primaries  of  Oshkosh  or  Yuba 
Dam,  .  .  Yet  our  system  does  not  save  us  money ;  for  satis- 
factory establishments  at  the  leading  ports,  where  alone  they 
are  needed,  would  cost  less  than  the  present  aggregate.  .  .Our 
consular  system  is  something  '  to  make  the  very  gods  of 
solemnity  laugh.'  "  ' 

Surely  it  is  not  a  matter  for  argument  or  doubt,  whether  the 
contrast  of  our  political,  ill-instructed,  shifting  consuls,  with 
the  experienced  and  highly-educated  officials  of  the  leading 
monarchical  states,  in  all  the  commercial  ports  of  the  world 
■ — whether  their  relative  influence  upon  national  commerce, 
reputation,  and  honor  are  or  not  favorable  to  our  trade,  to  re- 
publican institutions,  or  to  American  patriotism  ?  Or,  looking 
to  the  contrasts  presented  in  the  State  Departments  at  home — 
the  one  system  tendering  high  standards  of  capacity  and  attain- 
ments, the  other  balancing  the  pressure  of  factions  and  the  in- 
terests of  partisan  politics — is  the  suggestion  and  the  influence 
any  more  favorable  to  American  pride  or  patriotism  ?  If 
our  foreign  relations — whether  the  part  pertaining  to  com- 
merce or  the  part  pertaining  to  the  other  great  subjects  of 
national  jealousy  and  ambition — upon  either  of  the  continents 
presented  any  thing  like  the  complications  and  difficulties  with 
which  the  British  Foreign  Office  has  to  deal,  our  Secretary  of 
Sta|;c  would,  I  venture  to  think,  find  it  absolutely  impossible 
to  give  the  amount  of  time  and  thought  now  wasted  upon  the 
miserable  negotiations,  bargainings,  and  balancings  that  attend 
the  selections  and  appointments  of  a  great  portion  of  the  con- 
suls and  not  a  few  of  thelower.  grade  of  diplomatic  repre- 

'  Iniernali'onal  lieview,  April,  1879,  pp.  357-359. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX  GREAT  BRITAIN.  441 

sentatives.  lie  is  compelled  to  listen  to  importunity,  to 
weigh  partisan  influence,  and  to  calculate  and  2)rovide  for  po- 
litical consequences  every  year  in  connection  with  the  candi- 
dacy of  hundreds  of  persons  for  these  places,  nearly  every  one 
of  whom  would  be  excluded  by  the  non-partisan  tests  which 
are  applied  by  Great  Britain,  and  by  every  other  great  and 
enlightened  nation  of  the  world — tests  of  capacity  and  fitness 
which  are  as  essential  to  advance  the  commerce  as  they  are  to 
maintain  the  honor  of  the  country  and  the  prestige  of  repub- 
hcan  institutions. 

IV.  It  would  carry  me  too  far — and  it  is  quite  supei-fluou3 
— to  cite  authority  as  to  administration  at  our  o^^^l  doors  ;  but, 
by  way  of  bringing  into  comparison  the  British  and  American 
systems,  as  applied  to  dependencies  or  territories,  as  to  which 
the  facts  are  perhaps  not  so  familiar  to  the  reader,  I  cite  the 
following  statement  from  a  late  article  written  by  the  Chief- 
Justice  of  the  Territory  of  Montana,'  who  certainly  must  be 
familiar  with  our  Territorial  system  ;  and,  as  a  high  judicial 
official,  he  may  be  assumed  to  be  candid  : 

"Good  men  are  often  removed  without  cause  or  prov- 
ocation, to  make  room  for  others  whose  claims  are  thought 
to  be  superior  by  reason  of  their  services  to  the  party 
in  power,  or  whose  importunity  becomes  unendurable.  .  . 
A  swann  of  office-seekers  besiege  the  '  White  House,'  sup- 
ported by  a  thousand  and  one  pretended  claims  and  in- 
fluences ;  charges  arc  made  against  the  distant  officer,  and 
he  is  removed  without  notice  or  warning  ;  the  result  is  that 
Federal  officials  are  constantly  arriving  in  the  Territories  and 
departing  from  them,  until  the  terms  '  pilgrim '  and  '  car- 
pet-bagger,' by  which  names  they  are  generally  known  and 
designated  among  the  people,  become  natural  and  appropriate. 
.  .  An  officer,  by  the  purity  of  his  life  and  official  conduct,  be- 
comes popular  with  the  people.  The  embryo  Senators  and 
members  of  Congress  see  danger  in  the  distance.  Their  rival 
must  be  humbled,  and  the  word  of  one  man  upon  an  ex-parte 
hearin?  can  cause  his  removal  and  dci^radation.  This  feelinw 
is  the  parent  of  many  an  unjust  charge  and  accusation,  where- 
by the  Territories  may  be  kept  in  a  constant  broil." 
'  International  Jievieic,  March,  1879,  p.  303. 


4ia  CIVIL   SERVICE  IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  tliat  abuses  of  this  character,  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  British  system,  cannot  happen  anywhere 
in  the  vast  chain  of  her  dependencies,  from  imperial  India  down 
to  the  smallest  island  under  her  flag.  And  how  long  do  we 
think  her  rule  could  be  maintained — ^how  many  years  could  we 
hold  India,  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  the  great  Australian  col- 
onies, Tasmania,  or  even  such  second-class  dependencies  as 
Jamaica,  New  Zealand,  Cape  Colony,  or  Ceylon — under  such  a 
system  as  we  tolerate  ?  Even  the  smallest  of  these  secondary 
dependencies  has  a  population  greater,  I  believe,  than  the 
entire  white  population  of  all  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States  combined.* 

y.  As  bearing  upon  the  last  of  the  three  points,  I  cite  from 
a  report  lately  submitted  to  Congress  by  a  committee,''  repre- 
senting one  of  the  great  parties,  which  has  just  been  making 
extensive  investigations  : 

' '  At  the  end  of  each  four  years  the  entire  Federal  patronage 
(amounting  to  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  offices)  is  col- 
lected in  one  lot,  and  the  people  divide  themselves  into  two 
parties,  struggling  in  name  to  choose  a  President,  but  in  fact 
to  control  this  enormous  patronage,  which  the  President,  when 
elected,  is  compelled  to  distribute  to  his  party  because  he  was 
elected  to  so  distribute  it.  The  temj)tation  to  fraud,  to  usur- 
pation, and  to  corruption,  thus  created,  is  beyond  calculation. 
A  prize  so  great,  an  influence  so  powerful,  thus  centralized 
and  put  up  at  short  periods,  would  jeopard  the  peace  and 
safety  of  any  nation.  .  .  No  nation  can  withstand  a  strife 
among  its  own  people,  so  general,  so  intense,  and  so  demoral- 
izing. No  contrivance  so  effectual  to  emharrass  government, 
to  disturb  the  public  peace,  to  destroy  political  honesty,  and 
to  endanger  the  common  security,  was  ever  hefore  invented.'^'' 

And  yet,  since  that  report  was  adopted,  a  dehberate  removal 
lias  been  made  by  that  party  of  officers  of  the  national  Senate 
for  political  reasons  alone — one  of  the  most  extreme,  inde- 
fensible, and  unprecedented  acts  of  partisan  proscription  to  be 

'  Their  population  is  about  as  follows  :  Ceylon,  3,500,000;  Jamaica, 
500,000  ;  Cape  Colony,  700,000  ;  New  Zealand,  800,000. 

'  Report  made  by  Mr.  Potter  from  the  Committee  on  Alleged  Frauds  in 
the  late  Presidential  Election,  p.  Gl,  March  3,  1879. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN.  443 

found  in  the  whole  history  of  the  government.'  In  presence 
of  snch  declarations  and  such  acts,  does  patriotism,  and  faith  in 
official  life,  remain  unimpaired  ? 

Over  against  these  acts  of  one  party,  impartial  history  must 
set  acts  of  the  other  party  hardly  less  discreditable  and  disas- 
trous.' 

Acting  iipon  a  reform  policy  recommended  in  18 TO  by  a 
President  of  its  choice,  that  pai-ty  in  the  most  formal  manner 
pledged  itself  to  reform  the  civil  service,  and  holding  up 
that  pledge  before  the  people,  it  earned  a  national  election. 
The  work  of  reform  was  entered  upon,  but  while  it  was  going 
forward,  with  the  good  effects  set  forth  in  Appendix  C,  it 
was  suppressed  by  the  party  which  had  started  it  through  a 
refusal  to  vote  money  to  cany  it  forward,  although  an  appro- 
priation was  requested  by  a  special  message  of  the  President, 
April  18th,  1874.  Such  examples  might  well  be  discouraging 
if  the  reform  sentiment  had  not,  after  every  betrayal,  risen 
yet  more  powerful  to  rebuke  the  folly  of  those  who  insulted 
it,  and  to  thrust  aside  those  who  attempted  to  trample  upon  it. 

If  I  have  cited  these  instances  of  infidelity  to  pledges  and 
professions,  in  support  of  views  before  expressed,  they  are  not 
less  instructive  as  showing  that  here,  as  has  been  the  fact  in 
England,  there  is  more  hope  of  reform  from  the  Executive  than 
from  Congress,  and  perhaps  from  the  joint  influence  of  the 
best  men  of  both  parties  than  from  either  party  acting  alone. 

In  Appendix  A.  we  can  learn  how  httle  an  Enghshman 
finds  to  place  the  administration  of  his  country  in  a  repulsive 
or  humiliating  attitude  before  his  eyes.  But  how  different  is 
it  with  us  !  What  I  have  cited  is  but  here  and  there  a  line 
from  the  vast  volume  of  indignation,  complaint,  lamentation, 
and  disgust,  in  connection  with  our  administrative  methods, 

'  If  only  the  clAim  of  the  principal  officer  removed  were  involved,  I  should 
think  that  the  extreme  partisan  work  in  which  he  so  unbecomingly  engaged 
fully  justified  his  removal. 

*  Having  no  party  ends  to  save  by  this  volume,  and  believing  that  civil 
service  reform  is  a  great  cause  and  interest  of  the  people,  which  they  must 
carry  forward  against  what  is  most  selfish,  corrupt,  and  partisan  in  offi- 
cial life  and  in  each  of  the  great  parties,  it  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  screen 
either  party,  or  to  point  out  which  party  has  rendered  most  service  to  that 
cause,  or  from  which  it  has  most  to  hope  iu  the  future. 


444  CIVIL  SERVICE   IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

■which  comes  from  every  quarter  of  tlie  Union,  from  every 
grade  of  life,  from  every  sphere  of  political  action.  The  vil- 
lages, tlie  cities,  the  army  posts,  the  special  agencies,  tlie  cns- 
tom-houses,  the  mayors,  the  governors,  the  consulates,  the 
revenue  officers,  the  president — in  short,  public  aifairs  of 
every  nature  and  officers  of  every  class — are  involved  in  dis- 
trust and  are  degraded  in  popular  estimation,  by  reason  of  the 
opportunities  aiforded  by  a  partisan -spoils  system  of  office  and 
the  use  that  is  made,  or  is  believed  to  be  made,  of  these  op- 
portunities. In  the  formal  papers  of  the  President,  in  the 
resolutions  of  conventions.  State  and  National,  in  debates  in 
the  Senate  and  the  House,  in  reports  of  committees  and  of 
subordinate  officers,  in  our  periodical  literature,  in  the  speeches 
and  sermons  of  our  thoughtful  men,  in  the  press  and  in  com- 
mon speech  of  the  people,  in  forms  and  at  times  innumerable, 
we  see  onr  administrative  system,  for  such  reasons,  denounced, 
and  the  character,  and  motives  of  those  who  administer  it  ar- 
raigned and  brought  under  suspicion.  Tliis  goes  ai  from 
month  to  month,  from  year  to  year,  from  administration  to 
administration.  Can  any  one  undertake  to  estimate  how  much 
it  has  done  to  impair  confidence  in  our  institutions,  to  cast 
suspicion  over  all  official  life,  to  disgust  the  people  with  the 
very  name  of  politics,  to  drive  good  men  from  the  polls,  to 
bring  republicanism  into  disrepute  both  at  home  and  abroad  ? 
And  it  is  because  these  abuses  are  hnown,  bringing  joy  to  our 
enemies  and  sorrow  to  our  friends  in  other  countries,  that  we 
find  John  Bright  using  this  language  in  1874,  at  the  very 
moment  the  then  dominant  was  strangling  its  oicn  reform: 
"Your  proposed  reform  is  a  great  undertaking.  I  hope  the 
good  sense  of  your  jjeople  will  enable  you  to  complete  it. 
All  the  friends  of  your  country  in  other  nations  will  congratu- 
late you  on  your  success."  *  Thus  far,  only  the  politicians 
and  not  the  j^eople  have  dealt  M'ith  the  reform.  When  the 
people  shall  have  it  fairly  before  them,  need  we  doubt  that 
Mr.  Bright's  hopes  will  be  realized  ? 

'  See  his  letter  of  April,  1874,  in  Appendix  A. 


APPENDIX  C. 

CITIL   SERVICE   EEFOKM  UXDER  PRESIDENT   GRANT. 

The  pnictical  results  of  that  experiment;— The  good  effects  of  the  merit  sys- 
tem estabHshed. — Its  defeat  caused  by  patronage  monopolists  in  Congress. 
— Analogous  to  the  first  experience  in  Great  Britain. 

It  is  a  matter  of  general  information,  tliat  under  President 
Grant  a  tnal,  beginning  January  1st,  1S72,  was  made  of  the 
merit  system  in  a  limited  way  ;  the  regulations,  competitions 
and  examinations  being  closely  analogous  to  those  so  long  in 
practice  in  Great  Britain.  1  hardly  need  recall  the  well- 
known  facts  that,  by  reason  of  the  imperfect  supjjort  given 
the  reform,'  of  open  hostility  in  vaiious  official  quarters,  and 
of  the  damaging  examples  of  official  infidelity  on  the  part  of 
some  of  those  connected  with  the  Administration,  the  new 
system  was  placed  at  a  great  disadvantage  ;  but  it  is  important 
not  to  forget  that,  despite  all  these  drawbacks,  its  good  effects 
clearly  appeared,  and  that  they  are  established  by  authority  so 
high  and  direct  as  not  to  be  oj^en  to  question.  From  the  re- 
port of  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  submitted  to  President 
Grant  in  April,  1874,'  it  appears  that,  upon  the  basis  of  their 
own  experience  and  of  the  reiDorts  of  their  subordinates,  the 
heads  of  departments — the  members  of  the  Cal)inet — ap- 
proved the  language  of  the  report,  which  stated  the  following 
as  the  results  of  the  trial  of  the  new  system — that  is,  of  the 
rules  then  in  force  : 

(1)  "  They  have,  on  an  average,  where  examinations  apply, 
given  persons  of  superior  capacity  and  character  to  tlic  ser- 
vice of  the  government,  and  have  tended  to  exclude  miworthy 
applicants. 

(2)  ''They  have  developed  more  energy  in  the   discharge 

'  Report,  p.  42. 

29 


446  CIVIL   SERVICE   IX   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

of  duty,  and  more  ambition  to  acquire  information  connected 
with  official  functions,  on  the  part  of  tliose  in  tlie  service. 

(3)  "  Tliey  have  diminished  the  unreasonable  solicitation 
and  pressure  which  numerous  applicants  and  their  friends, 
competing  for  appointments,  have  before  brought  to  bear 
nijon  the  departments  in  the  direction  of  favoritism. 

(4)  "  They  liave,  especially  where  competition  applies, 
relieved  the  heads  of  departments  and  of  bureaus,  to  a  large 
extent,  of  the  necessity  of  devoting,  to  pei-sons  soliciting  places 
for  themselves  or  for  others,  time  which  was  needed  for  official 
duties. 

(5)  ' '  They  have  made  it  more  practicable  to  dismiss  from 
the  service  those  who  came  in  under  the  civil  service  examin- 
ations, when  not  found  worthy,  than  it  was,  or  is,  to  dismiss 
the  like  unworthy  persons  who  had  been  introduced  into  the 
service  through  favor  or  dictation. 

(6)  "  They  have  diminished  the  intrigue  and  pressure,  be- 
fore too  frequent,  for  causing  the  removal  of  worthy  persons 
for  the  mere  purpose  of  bringing  other,  perhaps  inferior,  per- 
sons into  the  service." 

And  the  Commissioners,  at  the  close  of  the  report,  make 
these  statements  as  to  the  practical  working  of  the  new 
methods  : 

1.  "  The  practicability  of  fairly  conducting  examinations 
as  to  the  qualities  to  be  tested,  and  of  fairly  rating  the  re- 
sults of  comi3etition,  and  of  preserving  reliable  evidence  of 
the  same,  has  been  established. 

2.  "It  has  been  demonstrated  that  competitive  examina- 
tions for  entrance  to  the  public  service  will,  besides  diminish- 
ing evil  influences  in  our  politics  generally,  bring  a  better 
class  of  persons  into  that  service  and  insure  more  efficiency  in 
administration. 

3.  "  In  regard  to  promotions,  it  has  been  shown  that  the 
method  of  competition  may  be  so  united  with  the  exercise  of 
the  proper  authority  of  heads  of  offices  or  bureaus  as  to  pre- 
vent the  favoritism  and  discouragements  too  frequent  under 
the  old  method  of  making  promotions,  and  secure  more  fidel- 
itv  and  intelligence  in  the  service. 


CIVIL  SERVICE   IX   GREAT   BRITAIX.  447 

6.  "To  carry  on  tlie  reform  for  another  year,  there  is 
needed  an  appropriation  of  $25,000.    .    .    ." 

There  is  no  need,  nor  can  the  space  be  spared,  to  present  liere 
even  an  outline  of  the  decisive  evidence  by  which  the  utility 
of  the  new  system  was  demonstrated  in  that  report.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  on  the  ISth  April,  IS 74,  President  Grant 
sent  the  report  to  Congress  with  a  special  message  in  which 
he  says  : 

"  Herewith  I  transmit  the  report  of  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission. If  sustained  by  Congress,  I  have  no  doubt  the  rules 
can,  after  experience  gained,  be  so  improved  and  enforced  as 
to  stiU  more  materially  benefit  the  public  service  and  reheve 
the  Executive,  members  of  Congress,  and  the  heads  of  depart- 
ments from  influences  prejudicial  to  good  administration.  The 
rules,  as  they  have  hitherto  been  enforced,  have  resulted  bene- 
ficially, as  is  shown  hy  the  opinions  of  the  inemhers  of  the 
Cabinet  and  their  svhordiixates  in  the  Dej)artments,  and  in 
that  opinion  1  concur.''^ 

The  message  concluded  by  asking  for  the  same  appro- 
priation for  the  next  year  that  had  been  made  for  the  pre- 
vious year.  President  Grant  repeated  these  \'iews  in  his 
annual  message  of  December  7th,  1874,  in  which  he  again 
appealed  to  Congress  for  an  appropriation.  Not  even  such 
unquestioned  evidence,  reinforced  by  the  request  of  the 
President,  could  avail  in  that  Congress.  Its  members  lacked 
faith  in  the  higher  sentiments  of  the  people  as  much  as  they 
desired  patronage  in  their  own  hands.  Party  managere  clam- 
ored for  spoils.  There  was  a  lamentable  absence  of  foresight 
and  statesmanship.  The  pledges  of  the  past  and  the  promise 
of  the  future  were  sacrificed  by  a  refusal  to  make  the  least  ap- 
propriation, and  by  treating  with  contempt  an  experiment  for 
which  the  party  and  administrative  power  were  responsible. 
For  a  time  this  refusal  in  a  large  measure  suppressed  the  re- 
form methods.*  That  it  did  not  arrest  the  reform  sentiment, 
is  very  clearly  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  w:is  an  element  which 

'  I  say  for  a  time  and  in  large  measure,  because,  though  the  rules  appear  to 
have  been  formally  suspended  in  some  departments,  they  have  hardly  any- 
where lost  their  influence,  and  various  public  officers  have  since  shown  so 
much  respect  for  the  public  interests— notably  Secretary  Schurz  and  Postmas- 


448  CIVIL   SERVICE   IN   GREAT  BRITAIN. 

exerted  a  greater  influence  in  tlie  next  Presidential  election 
than  it  liad  ever  exerted  upon  any  previous  national  canvass. 

With  the  members  of  that  Congress  directly,  but  not 
solely,  must  rest  tlie  responsibility  of  deserting  and  arresting 
a  reform  to  which  they  were  pledged,  and  of  losing,  without 
the  least  gain,  a  powerful  hold  upon  the  confidence  of  the  na- 
tion. In  noticing  this  lamentable  triumph  of  j^ersonal  and 
partisan  selfishness  ov^er  statesmanship  and  public  faith,  we 
cannot  fail  to  recall  the  fact  that,  at  near  the  same  time  after 
the  first  introduction  of  the  merit  system  into  Great  Britain, 
Parliament  condemned  it  by  an  adverse  vote,  but  its  members 
never  (like  the  members  of  this  Congress  *)  refused  an  appro- 
priation requested  by  the  Executive  to  carry  it  on. 

Prom  these  facts,  we  can  see  that  the  merit  system  is  just  as 
practicable,  and  that  it  bids  fair  to  be  as  salutary,  in  this  coun- 
try, as  it  has  been  found  to  be  in  Great  Britain  and  the  other 
leading  nations  ;  and  that  its  strongest  enemies  are  patronage 
monopolists  in  Congress.  It  is,  perhaps,  vain  to  expect  that 
these  monopolists  or  that  partisan  managers  will  voluntarily 
surrender  their  spoils,  or  in  any  way  begin  a  reform  ;  but  is 
it  unreasonable  to  expect  that  the  people  will  not  much  longer 
tolerate  abuses  the  removal  of  which  is  thus  proved  to  be 
entirely  practicable,  and  which  it  only  needs  a  firm  and  clear 
expression  of  their  wishes  to  bring  about  ? 

ter  James  of  New  York — that  they  have  again  put  them  in  force,  with  the 
sanction  of  President  Hayes  ;  and  within  the  last  few  days  they  have  been,  in 
the  same  spirit,  applied  in  the  Custom-House  and  in  the  Naval  Office  at  the 
City  of  New  York. 

'  It  was  stated  in  the  public  journals  at  the  time,  that  fifty-one  of  them, 
soon  after  the  4th  of  March,  urged  their  personal  claims  for  office  upon  the 
President,  to  say  nothing  of  claims  innumerable  made  on  behalf  of  their 
favorites  and  henchmen. 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Aberdeen,  Lord,  as  a  reformer 

175,  185 

Abuses,  not  original  with  us 

lie, 21,  23 

not  well   jruarded   against   in 

Constitution  of  the    United 

States 2,3 

first,  general  inquiry  into. ...  29 
early    reforms    of,    in    Great 

Britain 4,  5,  G 

under  feudal  system,  Chs.  II. 

and  III.,  11  to  43 

under  Charles  II.,  and  James 

II C0-G8 

under  Walpole 91-101 

under  George  III 102-118 

under  George  IV 145 

how      neglected      in      United 

States 8,9 

of  patronage  by   members   of 

Parliament,  147-149  {see  Pat- 
ronage), 
as  they  existed  in  ia53. .  .183-189 
brought  out  by  investigation 

of  18G0 216-222 

of  power  of  nomination.  .224, 

225,  231-233.  236 

examples  of,  in  1873 241,  242 

but     corruption     not     found 

212,245 

in  the  State  Church 267-282 

compared  with  those   of  the 

United  States 352 

chargeable  against  both  our 

parties 442-441 

See  Patronage,  Spoils  System, 

Bribery,  Parliament,  Offices, 

OflBcers,  Church. 
Administration,  its   importance 


PAQS 

slow  of   being   understood 

5S.  68,  78,  118.  119 

Administration,  now    a  science 
in  Great  Britain. .  .4,  7, 11  c,  123 
effect  of,  a   change  of,   upon 

officers 217,  218,  note. 

See  Merit  System,  Removals, 

Officers, 
permanent  nature  of  questions 

as  to 4,11,424,425 

danger  of  neglecting  .  .4,  426,  427 

in   France 330,  439 

grows  more  difficult  and  com- 
plicated  426,  427 

how  benefited  by  new  system 

'....7.432 

state  of  British  in  1820 ..  145-147 
state  of  British  in   1853.  .181-185 
neglected  in  the  United  States 
and  studied   in   older  coun- 
tries...  .6.  7,  8.  9.  118,  149, 

175,416,417,418,422 

and  better  there 420 

British  and  American  systems 

compared 77,  78,  128, 

129,  133-139,  150,  278,  280, 

303,304 
American  opinions  of  British 

282,434-444 

its  character  in  1853 182 

See  Chap.  XXX.,  Merit  Sys- 
tem.  Spoils  System.  Parti- 
san System,  Party  Govern- 
ment, Abuses,  Patronage. 
Parliament,  Customs  Ser- 
vice, Postal  Service,  Bribe- 
ry, Offices.  Officers,  Sales, 
Competition,  and  Examina- 
tions. 
Administrative     reform.      See 


450 


INDEX. 


Reform    and     Merit    Sys- 
tem. 
Advowsons,    sale    of    [see     Re- 
ligion and  Cburcb)...  .109, 

275,  279 
Allowances.     See   Superannua- 
tion. 
Annapolis.     See  Naval  Offices. 
America,   early   the    victim    of 
the' partisan  spoils  system 

116-118 

reform  and lier independence, 

a  twin  birth 124 

Anne,  Queen,  her  reign     82-88 

touching  by  for  sickness 26 

law  of,  forbidding  officers  in- 
terfering with  elections .  85, 

309,  310 
Appointing  power,  treated  as  a 

mere  perquisite 39-43 

origin  of  the  theory  of  its  ir- 
responsibility  47,  48 

slow  developement  of  sound 

views  concerning 64 

gained  by  members  of  Parlia- 
ment       84 

the    questions    presented    as 

to 11 

abuses  of,  prohibited  by  law 

in  Great  Britain 132-139 

abuse  of,  in  the  Church.  .274-277 
abuse  of,    in    United    States 

407-409 

none  in   members  of  Parlia- 
ment  306,  307,  310,313 

responsibility  in  use  of.  ..231, 

232,  408,  409 
See     Patronage,     Removals, 
Spoils  System,  Senate,  Par- 
liament, Officers,   Competi- 
tion. 
Appointments.    See  Officers  and 

Appointing  Power. 
Appropriations.    See  Supplies. 
Aristocracy,  reform  early  seen 
to  be  hostile  to....  160,  161, 

175,  180,  201,  202,  235,  246 


PAGE 

Assessments,  why  none  in  early 

times  in  Great  Britain 43 

practically  excluded  by  Peti- 
tion of  Right 51 

none  under  Cromwell £5 

nearest  approximation  to.. 91, 

92,  146 
the  injustice  of.. .  .50,  51,  411-413 
political,  in  United  States. 410-412 

relation  of  Senate  to 412 

Army  offices,  venal 48 

proscription  in,  under  James 

II 03,  64,67 

under  George  III 104,  110, 

111,  121 

purchase  of  offices  in 283-285 

ours  follows  English   prece- 
dent  Ill,  note. 

favoritism  in  our  army ....  284-287 
Australia.    See  Competition  and 
Examinations. 


B 


Bacon,  his  corruption 49 

Badeau,  General,  his  opinion..  434 

Bank  of  England  conducts  ex- 
aminations   321 

Ballot,  when  secured 291 

Baronets  and  Titles  {see  Titles). 

268-270 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  overawed  by 

reform  sentiment 374-375 

Bill  of  Rights.     See  Rights. 

Blackstone,  Sir  William 40,  96 

the  theory  ot  government  he 
describes 40 

Bolingbroke,    Lord,    originated 

partisan  removals. . .  .84,  86,  97 

Boy  clerks 264,  note. 

See  Civil  Service. 

Borough  corruption. 45,  91,  111, 

113,  114 

Boroughs  created   for   political 
j)urposes     45 

Bribery  under  James  1 49 

under  Charles  II 5,  7 


INDEX. 


451 


Bribery  under  James  II 64,  67 

under  Queen  Aune 86 

under  Geo.  Ill 106-115,  120 

limited  by  public  opinion 121 

when  it   began  in  elections.  .     50 
increased  with  power  of  Par- 
liament  70,79,  80 

under  Walpole 91,  92 

in  borough  elections Ill,  etc. 

See  Boroughs. 

prohibited  by  stringent  stat- 
utes  132-139,  \o\,note. 

its  decline 124 

our   laws  against,  less  strin- 
gent than  the  British.  ..137-139 
of  memberSjbut  not  of  electors, 

ceased  under  George  IV. . .  145 
See  Patronage,   Offices,    and 
Spoils  System. 
Bombay,   how   its    health    has 

been  improved  292 

Brokerage  of  Office,  see  Office 

and  Office  Brokerage 132-139 

Bright,  John 217 

letter  from 433 

•     his  opinions 370,  433,  434 

Bureaucracy,  bearing  of   merit 
system,  as  to.  199,  200,  214,  215 

excluded  by  competition 300 

Burke  as  a  reformer 4,  101, 

118,  122,  272 
Bute,  Lord 106,  107 


Cade,  Jack 27,  36 

Cadets,  selection  of,  iu  United 

States 284,  285 

See   Army,  Military  School?, 
Purchase,    Competition,  Ex- 
aminations. 
Cabinet  Council,  or  "  The  Cabi- 
net," origin  of 74 

original  of  our  Cabinet 76 

how  elevated  by  p-irty  gov- 
ernment  83,  84 

Composition  of 73 

Canada,  reform  in 8,  11  a 


Caricature  in  times  of  George 

III 121 

Catholics,  disabilities  of. 88, 112, 

113,  126 
See  Church,  Sacrament,   and 
Tests. 
Character,  as  tested  by  compe- 
tition.    See  Competition, 
an  essential  qualification   for 

office  in  U.  S .2,  118 

Ceylon,  examinations  extended 


to. 


Charles  II.  and  his  system 60-69 

Charters  sold  and  used  as  spoils 

18,20 

See  Spoils  System  and  Abuses. 
Chatham.    See  Pitt. 
Chinese,  the  reform  declared  to 

be 196 

Church,  the,  early  abuses  in.41- 

47,48 
See  Church. 

opposed  to  reform 110 

patronage  in 274-279 

its  creed  a  test  for  office. .  109, 

277,  291 
influence  in  universities.  .110,  125 
as  a  political  influence. .  .267-282 
See  Tests,  Religion  and  Sac- 
raments. 
Cities,  old  corruption  in. 21,  112-114 
merit    system    applicable    to 

157,158,  397 

Civil  service,  what  it  embraces 
in  Great  Britain.  ..143,  315, 

316,  358-360 
what    members    of    regard- 
ed as   political.      See  Offi- 
cers. 

publicity  as  to  doings  in 204 

See  Publicity. 

members  of,  kindly  treated. 
See  Officers. 

boy  clerks  in 264 

its  reform  an  executive  duty 

186-189,405,  406 

See  Executive. 


452 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Civil  service,  numbers   in  Brit- 

isli 217,218 

Britisli   and    American   com- 
parpd.        See     Administra- 
tion, 
importance    attached    to,    in 

Great  Britain 216,  217 

numbers    admitted   to,    eacb 

,      year 218 

formerly  two  classes  in..  235,  246 
bow  tbose  in  first,  elevated  in 

condition 130,  320-324 

when  those  in,  disfranchised .   131 

when  franchise  restored 131 

See  Abuses,  Officers,  Adminis- 
tration, Merit  System, 
Civil  service  commission,  origin 

of,  in  Great  Britain. 203, 204,  208 
in  United  States. 405,  406,  446-448 
report  of,  in  United  States. . .  447 
how    duty     of,      discharged 

209,  215,  265 

speedily  become  popular.. 209,  431 

judicial  character  of 210,  265 

general  reputation  of. . .  .210,  265 
praised  by  Parliament. .  ..211,  215 

annual  reports  of 213,  235 

authority  of,  extended. .  .229,  261 

examinations  for  India 249 

refuses  private  examinations.  321 

general  duties  of. 264,  265,  394 

full  records  kept  by.. 264,  265,  390 
its   proper  sphere   in  United 

States 393 

Civil   service   rules,  clauses   of 

Magna  Carta,  the  first 19 

statute    of     Richard    II.    tlie 

next  rules 33,  34 

the  third  series 71 

the  formal  rules  of  1855..  .204-206 

in  the  United  States 445-448 

President  Grant's  view  of. . .  447 
Civil  service  reform.  See  Re- 
form, Merit  System,  Civil 
Service  Commission,  Civil 
Service,  Officers,  Promotion, 
Appointments,  Parliament, 


Treasury,    Postal     Service, 
Examinations,  and  Customs 
Service. 
Civil  list,  first  parliamentary  in- 
terference with 120 

under  House  of  Brunswick.. .  272 
that  of  Queeu  Victoria. .  ..273,  273 
Classes.     See  Civil  Service. 
Clerks,  early  extortions  of,  how 

punished 21 

Commerce,  as   affected  by  the 

reform 325,  420,  431,  439-441 

Commission.     See  Civil  Service 

Commission. 
Competition,  various  kinds  of, 

explained 165-167 

contest  for  establishing  it.  169-178 
limited,     ordered      in      1855 

204-200,  210 

found  practicable  at  once. . . .  210 

fatal  to  patronage 242 

first  five  years  of 208-216 

blockheads    thrown    out     by 

209,  210 

elementary  and  practical  edu- 
cation encouraged  by.  .214, 

215,  218,  225,  226,  229,  280 
open,    recommended     by    in- 
quiry of  1860 221 

examples  of  its  utility. .  .224,  225 
why     preliminary    examina- 
tions required  for ,  . . .  224 

order  for  open,  in  1870. .  .228- 

233,  419,  420 
principle  of  open,  stated.. 231, 

232,  233 

regulations  as  to 229 

for  clerks  in  House  of  Lords..  236 
for  Clerks  of  Privy  Council 

219,220 

those  in  authority  its  natural 

enemies 237,  note. 

as  affected  by  inquiry  of  1874 

245 

as  a  test  of  character 166, 

167,  264,  265 
in  Australia  and  New  Zealand.  260 


INDEX. 


453 


Competition  for  military  service.  263 
See  Army  and  Examinations, 
how  it   stimulates   education 

204,  2G5 

See  Education. 

first    condemned    and     tlien 
approved     by.  Parliament 

207,211,  213 

results  of,  in  India 248,  258 

number  who  Lave  joined  in 

261,205 

in  subordinate  offices. . .  .315,  310 
its  general  effects. .  .324-326, 

354,  356-358.  365,  416 
required  by    great    corpora- 
tions   331,  322 

to   what   it   may  be  extend- 
ed  393 

the    justice  and    importance 

of 165-168,418,  419 

always   opposed    by  officials 

237,  note. 

in  revenue  service 298-3U1 

in  the  Treasury 303 

in  postal  service 308-310 

in  State  Department 311-312 

results  of  trial  of,  in  United 

States 44(>-448 

See  X.  Y.  Post-office.  James, 
Mr.,  and  Examinations. 

Coke,  Lord 49 

Collectors,  how  appointed.  .302, 

303,  304 

of  London 302 

objectionable    tenure    of,    in 

U.  S 413-415 

See  Customs  Service. 
Constitution,  sources  of  Ameri- 
can  2,118 

did  not  anticipate  abuses. ...  2,  3 
Commons,   clerks  of  House  of, 

how  appointed 314 

See  Parliament. 
Confrress,  Laws  of,  relating  to 

Civil  Service.  *. 138.  405 

what      action       of       useful 
185-189.  211,  212,  405-414 


Congressmen,  how  affected  by 

the  merit  system 377, 

378,  394-397 
Confirmation,    British      Parlia- 
ment no  authority  for 77 

closest  analogy  to  Senatorial 

power  of 42,  146,  147 

abuses   of    power   of,  in    the 

United  States 42,  413-416 

See  Senate  and  Offices. 

Consuls 237,  312,  421,  439 

in  China 440 

See    State    Department,  Cus- 
toms Service. 
Coroners,    corruptions     of,     in 

early  times 21,  37 

Corporations   required   to    sup- 
port king's  policy. . . .  , 65 

charters  sold  for  money. . .  .49,  50 
they  examine  their  clerks. 321,  322 

Corporation  test  acts 125 

See    Church,    Religion     and 
Tests. 
Corruption,  the  result  of  patron- 
age      31 

when   greatest  in   House    of 

Lords 70 

disappeared  before  1873.  .242,  245 
Ses  Abuses,  Parliament,  Bri- 
bery, and  Spoils  System. 
Crime,  under  the  spoils  system..    99 
under  the  merit  system.  .291, 

292,  422,  423 
Cromwell's  administration. . .  .54-59 
Custom-House  Officers,  how  re- 
moved by  James  II 67 

character  of  British 301 

compared  with  American. 303,  304 
See  Customs  Service. 
Customs    Service  under   Crom- 
well       55 

under  Geo.  Ill 105,  106,  113 

how  taken  out  of  politics.  156, 

300-305,  398,  399 
English   and  American  com- 
pared  300-305,  383 

in  New  York 448,  note 


454 


INDEX. 


Customs   service  under  partisan 

system 223,224 

effect  of  reform  upon 389-399 

ISee  Revenue,   Collectors,  Ex- 
aminations, Competitions. 


D 


Defalcation.  See  Peculation, 
Corruption,  Sweden  Cus- 
toms Service,  Revenue. 

Democracy.  See  Republicanism. 

Derby  as  a  ref orm*- . . .  1 75,  202,  217 

Dissenters  excluded  from  office 

109,  113 

See  Tests  and  Cliurcli. 

Dismissals.     See  Removals. 

Disf rancliisement.  See  Civil  Ser- 
vice, Officers,  Elections. 

Doctrinaires,  early  reformers  de- 
nounced as  being 10,  19G-198 

VFho  really  are 203,  371,  372 

Dockyard  influence 46 

apprentices  nove  examined. . .   224 

Drunkenness  under  partisan 
system 99 

Dufferin,  Lord 8,  311,  note. 

E 

Economy,      bearing     of     New 

system  upon 147,  148, 

149,  158,  238.  239,  240,  242,  293 
Education   encouraged  and  ad- 
vanced  by  merit    system 
161, 190, 196,  201,  202,  214, 
215,  218,  225,  226,  229, 
236,   264,  265,  289-291. 

335,  336,  373-376,  432 
of  women.     See  Women,  Ex- 
aminations and  Competition. 
Effects,  general,    of  the   intro- 
duction of  the  merit  system 

289-340,318-341 

See  Merit  System. 
Efficiency    of    British     Service 
303-305,  298,  299,  308,  402 


I  PAGE 

Efficiency.     See  Tenure,   Merit 

System,  and  Promotion. 
Eldon,  Lord,  hostile  to  reform 

125,  126 

Elections,    first     attacks     upon 
freedom  of 23,  28,  45,  46 

freedom  of,  demanded  by 
Cade's  rebellion 36 

corruption  of,  contested. 86,  89,  90 

freedom  invaded  by  James  II. 
64,  67 

and  by  Geo.  Ill 106 

bill  of  rights  declares  their 
freedom 71.72 

corruption  in  boroughs Ill 

See  Boroughs. 

false  counts  and  certificates 
23,64,67 

coerced  by  press-gangs 114 

districts      manipulated      and 

gerrymandered 64,  65 

Elections,     how     freedom     of, 

secured.... 85,  130,  131,  309,  310 

not  now  disturbed  by  revenue 
officers 298 

nor  by  postmasters 85,  309,  310 

voting  at,  denied  officers.. 131,  132 

privilege  of  voting  restored 
under  merit  system 131,  133 

same  result  as  to  voting  in 
Sweden.     See  Sweden. 

British  and  American  senti- 
ment and  laws  as  to  free- 
dom of,  compared.. 136,  137-139 

late  protection  of.  in  United 
States 11  c,  note. 

effect  of  merit   system  upon 

391,409,410 

Elective  officers,  cause  of  their 
increase   in   United    States 

399,400 

Eliot,  Sir  John,  as  a  reformer. 

50,58 

Examinations,    fisst   introduced 

146,  157,  158,  351,  44G 

their  early  effect 158 

imitated  in  United  States.  160.  164 


INDEX. 


455 


ExaminatioDS  aroused  great  op- 
position  160,  161 

various  kinds — pass,  limited 
and  open  competition — ex- 
plained   162-1G7 

denounced  as  chimerical 196 

of  women.     See  Women. 

elementary  and  practical  sub- 
jects of.  ..208,  214,  215,218, 

225,  226 
of  letter-carriers  and  sorters 

213,  224,236,  308 

pass,  not  wholly  superseded 

in  1855 211 

early    extended    to     Ireland, 

Scotland  and  Malta 210,  214 

numbers  rejected  on 213 

favor  schools. .  .214,  215,  218, 

225,  226,  236 
See  Education, 
great  numbers  examined.218, 

226,  265 
recommendations    as    to,    in 

1860 221 

in  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land  260 

introduced     for    Ceylon    and 

Mauritius 225 

not  claimed  to  be  infallible. .  201 
those  introduced  in  1855.  .204,  205 

subjects  of 208 

marking  and  grading  of  at- 
tainments  208,  209 

stimulated  education.  See  Ed- 
ucation, 
for  private  purposes  refused..  321 
to  what  places  to  be  extend- 
ed  ;..  339 

on  the  part  of  great  corpora- 
tions  321,322 

need  of  being  uniform 406 

for  India 177-180,  249-254 

preliminary,  introduced. ...174 

223, 224 

for  military  schools 234,  263 

better  men  secured  by 263 

See  Competition. 


Executive,  authority  and  duty 
to  make  reforms.. ..186-189, 

203,  394,  405,  406, 446,  447 
not  aggrandized  by  merit  sys- 
tem. ,158,  230,  231,  395,  396,  405 
Expense,  urged  against  reform 

in  Great  Britain 200 

Extortion,  examples  of... 22,  28,  note. 
See  Spoils  System. 


Favoritism     first     limited      by 

Cromwell 54 

in  the  army 283-287 

made   disgraceful    by   public 

sentiment.211,  213,  226,  201,  263 
See  Patronage. 
Fees.     See  Extortion. 
Feudal  administration.     See  Ch. 
II.   and   Chap.   III.   pp.  12 
and  39. 
Feudal  system,  origin  of  spoils 
system  in.   Chap.  III.  p.  39, 

Fox,  as  a  reformer 124 

France,  offices  salable  in 24 

her  administrative  system.339,  439 
Freedom,  early  sale  of,  to  serfs..     28 
See  Elections. 

G 

Gambling,  under  old  spoils  sys- 
tem   ICO 

Gangers,    formerly    arbitrarily 

removed 105 

now  specially  instructed 303 

Geo.  III., his  system 102,  349 

George  IV.,  administration  un- 
der. Chap.  XII.,  pp.  144- 
154. 

Gerrymandering,  origin  of. ... .     65 

Gladstone,  \V.   E.,  his  declara- 
tion as  to  patronage.  ...303,  304 
as  a  reformer 359 

Good  behavior  made  the  tenure 

of  judges 71,  72 

See  Tenure  and  Removals. 


456 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Good  Parliament 29 

Grant,  Ex-Pres.,  reform   under 

445-448 

commends   the   civil    service 
rules 447 

Great  Britain.  See  Civil  Ser- 
vice, Commerce,  Republi- 
canism, Patriotism,  Merit 
System,  Offices,  Examina- 
tions, Parliament,  Competi- 
tion. 

Granville,  Lord,  as  a  reformer 
214.  note,  352,  353,  359 

Grey,  Lord,  surrender's  patron- 
age...  > 153 

H 

Hampden 51 

Heads  of  departments 218,  note. 

See  Officers. 
Helps,  Arthur,  his  theory. .  .219,  2G7 
Hereditary,  offices  tended  to  be- 
come  10,17,43 

See  Offices. 
Hewitt,  Hon.  A.  S.,  his  views. .  439 
Honors.     See  Titles. 
Honesty.     See  Abuses,   Pecula- 
tion, and  Corruption. 

Hoppin,  Mr.,  his  opinion 435 

Holy  alliance 333 

Hume,  Joseph,  as  a  reformer 
159,  note. 

I 

India,  laws  to  elevate  her  civil 

service .139-141 

specimen  of  their  remarkable 

stringency 141-143 

magnitude  of  her  administra- 
tion  10,254-257 

examinations  for.  177-1 80,  249-254 
competitions  for  service  in.  177-180 

and  its  results 248-258.292 

Influence  not  relied  on.  .271,  301,  303 
Sec  Promotions,  Competition, 


Merit    System,  Appointing 
Power  and  Patronage. 
Inquiry,  the  first  commission  of, 

into  abuses 29 

See  Investigations. 
International    effects    of   merit 

system,  317,  etc. 
Internal    Revenue    administra- 
tion  296-300 

See  Revenue. 
Investigations,  the  first  made. ..     29 

demanded  by  Eliot 58 

those  made  about  1848. ..  .326,  327 
several  within  few  years  last 

past 181,  214,  210,  238,  244 

their  thoroughness 238 

they  show  growth  of  reform 

sentiment 243 

Ireland,  corruption  in ;112,  113 

bribes  on  union  with 120 

sale  of  offices  in 134 

religion  made  an  official  test 
in 113 


James  I.,  hia  system 47,50 

II.,  his  system 00-69 

James,    Th.   L.,  his    action    as 
postmaster... 236,  308,  309, 

447,  448 
Jackson,    Ex-Pres.,   his    theory 

like  Cromwell's 55,  56 

his  theory  really  that  of  feu- 
dal lords ...41,43 

Jeffreys 47-63,  OS 

Jews,  their  disability 126 

Judiciary,  British,  character   of 

293,  423 

Judges  formerly    bought   their 

offices 18 

allowed  to  sell  clerkships 17 

arbitrary  removals  of 07 

tenure  during  good  behavior..     71 

Junius 121 

Justice,    feudal    administration 
of 19,20,  48,  49 


INDEX. 


457 


PAGE 

Justice,  bow  improved  in  later 

years 292,422 

liow     promoted    by     reform 

379,  380,395 

Juptices,  taking  gifts  by 22 

required  to  know  tbe  law. ...     19 


K 


King,  liis  power  in  feudal  times..     25 
healing  the  sick  by,  a  political 
power 25,  26 

Knighthood  as  a  political  influ- 
ence  2G7-2T0 


Lawyers,   deceptions  by,   early 

punished 22 

Laws,  what  new  ones  desirable 
to  promote  reform..  186-189, 

211,  212,  405-414 
English  more  comprehensive 
and  stringent  than  Ameri- 
can  132-141 

Lay  patronage.     See  Patronage. 
Letters  opened  by  partisan  offi- 
cials    115 

of   various  persons,  appendix 

429,  etc. 

carriers   of.     See  Postal   Ser- 
vice,   London,   New   York, 
and  Examinations. 
Licenses,  brought  under  spoils 

system 67 

Limited  competition.    See  Com- 
petition and  Examinations. 

Liverpool,  collector  of 302 

Lords,  several,  surrender  their 

patronage 156,  414 

London,  postal  service  in 308 

School-Board 319 

crime  in,  formerly   and   now 

98,  100,  289,  290,  292 
Lords,  House  of,  most  corrupt, 
in  1088 70 


Lords,  House  of,  clerks  selected 

by  competition 237-314 

several,  surrender  patronage 
and  engage  in  reform.  See 
Liverpool,  Granville,  Pitt, 
Rockingham,  Grey,  Derby, 
Richmond,  Aberdeen,  and 
Palmerston. 

Lotteries,  part  of  spoils  system 

100,  107 

Lower   classes    favored    by    re- 
form  161,190,214,215,  218 

See  Poor  and  Education. 


M 


Macclesfield,  Lord 91 

Magna    Carta,    significance    of 

clauses  of 19 

contains  earliest  Civil  Service 

Rules 19 

Mann,  Horace.       See     Prelimi- 
nary note. 
Markings,  of  qualification,  208,  209 
See  Examinations. 

Marshalls,  corruption  of 21 

Marvel  as  a  reformer 57 

McCulloch,  letter  of 437 

Members.     See  Patronage,  Con- 
gress, and  Parliament. 
Merit   begins   to  be  better  test 

than  opinions 33, 126,  147 

See  Merit  System,  Promo- 
tion, Examinations,  Compe- 
tition. 

Merit  System,  meaning  of 161 

as  applied  by  statute  of  Rich- 
ard II 33.  34 

enabled  ofiicers  to  bo  re- en- 
franchised  131,133 

the  first  introduction  of  some 

elements  of 156-158 

founded  in  justice. .  .226,  227, 

363,  372,  373,  379,  380 
investigation  for  its  introduc- 
tion in  1853 181-194 


458 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Merit   System,  a  triumpli  over 
aristocratic  as  well  as  base 

elements 174-176 

opposition  made  to 192,  220 

Low  received,  on  its  first  in- 
troduction   195-203 

form  it  took  in  1855 204-206 

first  five  years'  experience  of 

208-215 

why  it  became  popular.  ..209, 

210,  211,  215 
first  condemned  and  then  sup- 
ported by  Parliament . .  207, 

211,  213 
favorable   to    popular  educa- 
tion and  justice 190-194, 

196,  201,  202,  214,  215,  218, 

225,  226,  227,  322,  324,  432 
two  classes  of  officers  at  first 

235,246 

results  of,  in  India 248-258 

its  practical   operation  since 

1875 259-265,  324,  432 

in  New  Zealand  and  Australia  260 
its  efl"ects  in  the  great  depart- 
ments  296-316 

its  economical  efiects 147, 

148,  149 
See  Economy. 
its  application  to  minor  offices 

315,316 

social,  moral,  and  internation- 
al effects  of 317,  etc. 

brought    in    better    class    of 

men 322-324 

its  final  triumph 355-358 

efiBct  on  parties.. 364,  365,  366,  432 
opposition  to  be  expected.  .236,  370 

experience  in  its  favor 370-373 

See    Sweden,     Prussia,     and 
France. 

is  firmly  established 374-378 

ail  opposition   has  ceased  in 

Great  Britain 430 

adapted  to  our  in8titutions.378,  379 
its  probable  effect  in  United 
States 385,388-401 


PAGE 

Merit  System,  how  and  to  what 
to    be    applied    in    United 

States 393-393 

effect  on  promotions. ..400,  401,  432 
See  Education,   Schools,   and 
Promotions. 

permanence  of 374,  375 

opinions   of    Trevelyan    and 

Bright 430-433 

general  effects  of,  as  already 
applied  in  U.  S.  Appendix  A. 

429-437,  445-448 

partial  application  of,  in  New 

York d^.note. 

under  President  Grant. . .  445-448 

Mill,  J.  S.,hi3  views 199,287 

Military  offices,  venal 48 

See  Spoils  System,  Removals, 

Army, 
schools.        See       Sandhurst, 
Woolwich,     Examinations, 
Army. 
Money  Orders.     See  Postal  Ser- 
vice. 
Monarchy    made    stronger    by 

reform 328, 332,  337 

See  Republicanism. 

Monopolies  sold 18,  49,  50 

Monopoly  of  patronage  by  mem- 
bers of  Parliament 155 

See  Patronage  and  Parliament, 
of  nominations,  how  defeated 

by  competition 1G5,  165 

See  Competition. 
Moral  sense  impaired  by  corrup- 
tion in  early  times 23 

in  time  of  Walpole.  .85,  93,  97,  99 
effects  of  merit  system  upon 

317,  etc..  357,  359 

Morality,  public,  in  Great  Brit- 
ain as  compared  with  United 
States.    .  .357-359,  375,  422,  423 
in   politics   impaired    in    the 
United  States .  375-377,  413, 

414,  note. 
See    Peculation,    Corruption, 
Abuses,  Spoils  System. 


IXDEX. 


459 


r 


Moran,  Mr.,  liis  views 435 

Morgan,  J.  S.,  letter  froui 436 

Mundella,  Mr.,  his  statement.. .  310 

N 

Naval  officers 263,  285,  287,  note. 

engineers  examined 224 

Nepotism,  examples  of 93, 

110,  note,  275,  note. 
Newcastle,  the  Duke  of .  ..87,  95,  97 

New  York  Custom-House 448 

tee  Custom  Service. 
New  York  Postal  Service. .  .308,  309 
See  James. 

North,  Lord 108,  117,  122 

New  Zealand,  ike  Competitions 

and  Examinations 

Nominations,  bad  ones  made  by 
members  of  Parliament. 224- 

227,  231-233,  261,  2G2 
monopoly  of,  defeated  by  com- 
petition  165,  166,  228 

right  to  make  became  value- 
less  228 

5iee  Appointing  Power,  Parlia- 
ment, and  Competition. 
New    System,   meaning    Merit 

System,  which  see. 
Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  his  re- 
port of  1853 181,217,238 


O 

OflBcers,  the  subordinate,  meni- 
als in  feudal  times 83 

first  exclusion   from    Parlia- 

ment <  -' 

interesting  statute  of  Richard 

II.  as  to 33 

proscription    on    account    of 
opinions  under  George  III. 

105,113,114 

disfranchised 130,131 

reinfranchised  in  1868 131 

excessive  nnmbers 146-149 

■—See  Placemen. 


PASE 

Officers  begin  to  be  paid  sala- 
ries   130 

are  recognized  by  law 130 

tenure  of,  and  its  effects.. 294- 

296,  367,  369 

what  officers  are  political  and 
liable  to  go  out  with  a  par- 
ty.80,  note,  81, 145-146, 147, 
155,  218,  303,  306,  365.  393,  394 

their  pride  and  self-respect  in 
Great  Britain. 240,  241,  294-206 

their  social  influence  improved 
by  the  reform.  146,  240,  319-324 

two  classes  of,  at  first 235,  246 

importance  of  their  character 
419-4\J1 

increase  of  elective,  in  U.  S., 
under  spoils  system 399,  400 

numbers  of,  in  the  public  ser- 
vice  

their  salaries.  See  Salaries 
and  Economy. 

now  better  treated  in  Great 
Britain  than  in  United 
States..  142,  143.  240,  294- 

296,  383,  384 

opinions  as  tests  for,  yield  to 
merit 126 

See  Tests,  Army,  Appointing 
Power,   Removals,   Exami- 
nations, Competition,  Merit 
System. 
Offices,  a  feudal  perquisite.  .13, 

14^17,  39^3 

early  made  merchandise 15 

sale  of.     See  Sale. 

tend  to  become  hereditary 
16,17,43 

why  not  arbitrary  removals 
from,  in  feudal  times 16,  48 

bought  back  by  government. .  .17 

rented 19.  20 

sale  and  brokerage  of,  prohib- 
ited   132 

sale  of  recommendations,  con- 
firmations, or  appointments 
for,  prohibited  by  law.  .132-136 


460 


INDEX. 


PAGB 

Offices,  dignity  of,  advanced  by 

the  reform. . .  .320,  322,  401,  402 

are  trusts 324,  379,  381 

proper  conception  of 363, 

364,  379,  381 
the  right  of,  or  the  basis  of 
claim  to  hold.  .357-359,  363, 

361,  372,  373,379,380 
tenure  of. .  .366-369,  413,  432,  433 
Sse  Tenure, 
chances  of  the  poor  to  gain 

improved 190,  192,  324, 

379,  380 
See  Poor, 
too  many  elective,  and  why 

399,400 

responsibility  of 357-359,  408 

right  of  removal  from,  given 

by  statute 43 

See  Removals,  Officers,  Tests, 
Appointing  Povver,Confirm- 
ations,  Merit  System,  Sale, 
Competition. 

Office  Brokerage 132-139 

See  Office. 
Official  records  formerly  secrets    20 
now   their   publicity   a  right 

264,  373,  375,390 

life  at  lowest  stage  in  1688. .     69 
life  has  risen  in  later  years. 
See  Moral  Sense,  Public  Opin- 
ion, and  Officers. 
Opinion.     See   Public   Opinion. 
Open  competition.     See  Compe- 
tition. 

Orders 269 

See  Titles. 
Order  in  council  for  competition 

in  1855 204 

in  1870 228-233 


Palmerston,  Lord,  sustained  re- 
form policy. ..... .202,  203,  223 

had   to  yield  to  his  commis- 
sion  209 


Pardons     sold     and    used     as 

spoils 18,28,45,  61 

Parliament   without  patronage 

in  early  times. 31 

and  then  engages  in  reforms..     30 

first  appoints  officers 31,  50 

placemen  early  in 45 

See  Placemen. 

boroughs    created    to    make 

members 45 

members  formerly  as  depen- 
dent as  clerks  now  are.  .45, 

46,  61,  66,  67 

noble  protest 66 

in  time  of  Charles  11 62 

in  time  of  James  II 66-68 

applies  theological  tests 62 

how  its  power  over  civil  ser- 
vice and  patronage  in- 
creased  74,75,  79,  80, 

128.  129,  145,  347 
placemen  excluded  from.. .  .71,  72 
failed  to  arrest  corruption. .. .  87 
proceedings    of,    kept    secret 

89,  115 

grasps  authority  and  patron- 
age  50,  84,  90, 114-120 

placemen  increase  in.  104,  113,  124 
See  Placemen. 

its  members  protected  corrup- 
tion in  boroughs 114 

became  in  itself  a  source  of 

corruption 87,  96,  97.  98 

Parliament     humbled    by    the 

higher  public  opinion,  ..124,  125 
effect  of  losing  patronage. . . .  431 

pensioners  excluded 71 

how   members    abused    their 

patronage 85,  147-149 

See  Patronage. 

its  monopoly  of  patronage  be- 
coming obnoxious 155 

how  members  opposed  compe- 
tition   166 

contest  of  members  for  pat- 
ronage against  competition 
109-176 


INDEX. 


461 


PAGE 

Parliament,  reasons  why  patron- 
age is  injurious  to  members 
and  to  the  nation 169-170 

patronage  of  members  in  1 853 
182-184 

members  hostile  to  merit  sys- 
tem, and  the  reason  for 
it 190-193,  234,  353 

condemned  the  new  system  in 
1855 207 

approved  new  system  in  1856 
and  1857 211,  212,213 

and  in  1859 215 

investigation  by,  in  1860.  .216-222 

bad    nominations    made    by 

members  of 224-227, 

231,  233,  261 

no  part  in  introducing  the 
merit  system  in  1870. » .203, 

204,  228 

nominations  by  members  con- 
demned and  taken  away 
231-233,298-313 

how  its  oflBcers  and  clerks  are 
now  appointed 313-31G 

members   now  no  patronage 

298-313 

Parliamentary  government,  or- 
igin and  meaning  of.  .74,  80,  83 

See  Party  Government. 
Pass-Examinations 157,  158,   183 

See  Examinations. 
Parties,  origin  of 74,  346 

See  Party  Government,  Par- 
tisan   System,   Patronage. 

an  advance  in  government 
and  liberty 83,84 

something  like  under  Crom- 
well  53,50 

attempt  to  govern  without 
73.  82,  104 

their  relation  to  reform. .  .207, 

211-213,  215,  441-444 

See  Party  Government. 
Party  government, meaning  of. 74,  80 

not  the  same  as  the  partisan 

system 74,  75,  83 

30 


Party    government,    its 


PAGE 

origin 
71-74,  340 

its  good  features 74,  83,  84 

failed   to  elevate   politics.  .87,  G47 

analogy  to,  under  Cromwell 
53,50 

its    oppressive    measures 89 

attempts  to  dispense  with 
82,104 

early  years  of  its  trial. 93,  98-101 

in  Wal pole's  time 93 

its  condition  when  George  III. 
began  his  reign 103 

became  less  corrupt  but 
more  proscriptive  under 
George  IV 145 

the  bearing  of  open  compe- 
tition and  the  merit  sys- 
tem upon 231,  232 

its  true   sphere 231,  233 

Party   government   has    gained 
by   new   system. .  .291,  304,  CC5 

patronage  thought  to  be  es- 
sential to 193,  193 

patronage  found  not  essential 
to. .  .'..33,  109-170,  233,  384-380 

See  Patronage. 
Partisan    system  in    spirit   first 
applied  by  Cromwell 53,  50 

its  origin  and  meaning. .  .75. 

347,  348 

its  merits 83,  84 

its  early  effects 79-81 

in  full  force  in  Parliament 
128,129 

failed  to  raise  administra- 
tion  87,  353 

of  removals  began  with  Bo- 
lingbroke 80 

degrades  religion  and  moral- 
ity  98-101 

is  a  perversion  of  party  gov- 
ernment  74,  75,  83 

employed  spies  and  press- 
gangs 113, 114 

how  it  grew  out  of  party 
government 74,  75,  128 


462 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Partisan  sj-stem,  not  mucli  cor- 
ruption in,  after  George  IV.  145 
its     evils    becoming    under- 
stood  153-154 

being    undermined    by    pub- 
lic opinion 153 

desperate   efforts    to    save    it 

151-154 

begins   to   give  w&y    and    to 

be  deserted 155,  158, 159 

generally  prevailed  in  1853. . .   183 
vain  attempts  to  make  it  ac- 
ceptable   185 

liow  superseded   in   1870  by 

open  competition 231,  233 

ceased  to  prevail. . .  .240,  247, 

358-388 

some  benefits  from 347 

final  results  of,  injurious... 364,  3G5 
Patriotism,  as  affected  by  abuses 

and  reforms 335- 

331,  338,  340,  343 
See  Republicanism. 
Patronage,  meaning  of,  87,  note, 
and  275,  7iote. 
when  Parliament  bad  little. ..     31 

under  William  III 79 

origin  of  theory  that  parties 

prosper  by 42,  84,  86,  97 

origin  of  the  senatorial  theory 

by  senators 42 

early  tended  to  corruption 85 

as  used  by  Cromvs^ell 55,  56 

used  to  keep  party  in  power...     85 
becomes  more  partisan  under 

George  III 128 

secresy  of 153 

when  and  how  secured  by 
members  of  Parliament.  .31, 
74,  75,  79,  80,  128, 139,  145, 

233,  347 
how  abused   by  members   of 

Parliament 85,  114,  147-150 

held     tenaciously    against    a 

frowning  public  opinion.lo3-154 
increased  by  party  government  74 
"  Patronage  Secretary". .  .153,  183 


TAGS 

Patronage,  accounts  kept  of . . , .  154 
surrendered  by  eminent  states- 
men  15G,  157,202,  380,  383 

See  Lords. 

abandoned  in  cities 158 

its  great  contest  with  compe- 
tition   169-176 

its  condition  in  1853 183,  184 

destroyed  by  competition. .338, 

342,  259-265,  313 

in  the  State  Church 375-383 

See  Church. 

as  applied  in  the  army, . .  .383-387 

its    growth     in    the     United 

States 384-387 

in  the  American  army. . .  .384-287 
how   excluded   from  the  de- 
partments in  Great  Britain 

296-316 

its  failure  as  a  power. 228,  352, 

353,  364 
indefensible       on      principle 

364,  365 
See  Right. 

injurious  to  members  of  legis- 
lature  364,397,  431 

members  ashamed  of  it..  .338,  431 
not  essential  to  parties,  and  its 

decay 384-388,  397 

none  now  possessed  by  mem- 
bers  .331-333,  298-313 

members    glad   to  be  rid  of 

228,431 

abolition  of,  beneficial. . .  ,431,  432 
injurious  to  a  party.. .384-388, 

396,  397 

ended  by  order  of  1870 238 

See  Parliament,    Spoils    Sys- 
tem, Merit  System. 
Peculation,    present    extent    of 

299,303,304 

See  Sweden. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  as  a  reformer 

126,  156 

Pelham 95 

Pensions,  used  to  bribe 113 

as  a  political  influence 270-273 


IOT)EX. 


463 


PAGE 

Pensioners  excluded  from  Par- 
liament      71 

See  Placemen  and  Parliament. 
Perquisites,  office   and  the  ap- 
pointing power   treated  as 

13,  16,  17.  44 

See    Sale,  Patronage,    Spoils 
System. 
Pierrepont,  Hon.  Edwards,   his 

views  and  letters 436 

Petition  of  riglit,  its  demand ...     50 
Pitts,  the, as  reformers.  . .  .4,  94, 

95,  97, 101,  103,  122,  123 

letters  of,  opened 115,  122 

Piffott,  case  of 374 

Placemen  early  in  Parliament..     45 

under  Cromwell. . . .  ^ 55 

under  Charles 02 

under  Walpole 92 

under  Geo.  Ill 124 

excluded  from  Parliament.  .71,  72 
See  Parliament. 

Plantagenets,  their  reign 15,  39 

Playfair,  Sir  Lyon 244 

Poor,  the,  gainers  by  the  merit 
system.. .101,107,  190,  192, 
214,  215,  324,  334,  335,  379,  380 
See  Education,  Merit  System, 
Examinations,  Competition. 
Politics,  extent  of,  in  public  ser- 
vice  289,299,  300,  301, 

805-308,  310,  311 
Sec  Competition,  Customs  Ser- 
vice, Postal  Service,  Exam- 
inations,   Promotions,    and 
Merit  System. 
Political  officers,  who  are,  and 

meaning  of 218,  note. 

See  Officers. 
Political  Assessments.     Sec  As- 
sessments. 
Postal   service,   when   used  for 

partisan  purposes 115 

those  in,  forbidden  to  engage 

in  elections 85,  310 

its  present  condition  . . .  .307- 

310,  393 


PAGE 

Postal      service,      postmasters 

300,307.  398 

competition  in 308,  310 

no  politics  in 309,  310 

that  of     London    and     New 

York  compared 308,  402 

letter-carriers  and  sorters  ex- 
amined  213,  224,  236,  308 

those  in,   the    last  protected 
from     arbitrary     removals 

140,218 

money  order  system  and  sav- 
ings banks 3C9 

See  James. 
Postmasters.      See  Postal    Ser- 
vice. 
Potter,  Hon.  C.  N.,  his  report. .  443 
Practical  qualifications  secured. 
See  Competition    and    Ex- 
aminations. 
Preliminary  examinations.    See 
Examinations. 

Presentations,  sale  of. 275,  279 

See  Religion  and  Church. 
President.     See  Executive. 
Press,  the,  censure  and  coercion 

of 89,  115,116 

becomes  a  great  power....  107, 

116,  122,  195,  note. 

becomes  free 144 

Press-gangs   used    as    a  politi- 
cal force 114 

Prisons,  conditions  under  spoils 

system 100 

Privy  Council,  its  ancient  power    73 
largely    superseded     by    the 

Cabinet 74 

order  of,  in  1855  and  1870 

203,228 

competition  for  appointing  its 

clerks 219,  220 

Probation,  meaning  of 108,  183 

part  of  merit  system 229, 

230.  264 

in  its  latest  form 204 

Promotions,    surrender   of  pat- 
ronacre  as  to.     See  Patron- 


404 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

age,  Granville,  and  Liver- 
pool. 
Promotions,  general  practice  as 
to,     under     merit     system 
26i,  2j8,  301,  30G,  382,  383, 

400,  401,  432,  439,  446 

to  fill  collectorships 302,  303 

effects  of  promotion  for  merit 
303,  320,  322,  382,  383,  433, 

439.  44G 
careful  regulations  to  secure 
justice   and    reward    merit 

220,264,  302,  303 

Proscription  by  James  II 05-68 

noble  protest  against 65,  66 

general,      started     by     bigli 

Tories 86 

by  reason  of  opinions 113,  114 

See  Removals,  Tests,  Religion, 
Spoils  System,  Army. 
Prosecution  of  authority.  See 
Sale,  Offices,  Perquisites, 
Spoils  System,  Patronage, 
Tests. 
Public  opinion,    none   in  early 

times 14,32,45 

when  it    first   showed   itself 

14,  32,  37 

its  increasing  power 84,  85 

overthrows  an  administration  107 
under  George  III.,  overawed 

him 103,  121-125 

overthrows  Parliament. .  .124,  125 
threatens  the  partisan  system  153 
becomes  a  controlling  power 

143,152-154,  159,  160, 

226,  246,  355 

rapid  changes  in 321,  374,  375 

now  supports  the  merit  sys- 
tem  321,374,375,377 

comparative    moral    standard 
of,   in    Great    Britain    and 

United  States 373-375, 

421,  424 
overawes  the  Disraeli  minis- 
try  374,375 

how  partisan  system  has  lovv- 


FAOE 

ered  our  standard  in  politics 

374-377,  413, 414,  note. 

Publicity  required  as  to  appoint- 
ments,  etc.,   204,  373-375, 

389,  390,  note. 
See  Civil  Service. 
Public  service.     See  Civil   Ser- 
vice,   Postal   Service,   Rev- 
enue   Service,    Army    Ad- 
ministration. 
Prussia,  her  reforms  and  reform 

policy 6,335-337 

Purchase,  in  the  State  Church. 
See  Church  and  Religion, 
in     the     Army   and    Church 

283-285 

See  Army,^  Church  and  Pat- 
ronage. 
Pym  represents  the  reform  sen- 
timent      50 

Q. 

Quarrels,    private,    settled     for 

money 20 

Queen  Anne.     See  Anne. 

E. 

Rebellion,    to   bring  about    re- 
form  26,  27,31,  35,36 

Recommendation  for  office.     See 
Offices  and  Sale, 
merit  system  excludes  them. 
See  Merit  System,  Patronage, 
Examinations. 

Reform,  aim  of 205,  206 

first  great  effort  for 30 

demanded  by  Cade's  and  Ty- 
ler's rebellions 35,  36 

the  cause  of  the  common  peo- 
ple    24,25,  35 

spirit  and  aim  of..  11  c,  14,  16, 

50,  266,  358-360 
condition  when    it   began   in 

England 24 

its  first  great  representatives.    50 


INDEX. 


465 


Reform  under  Cromwell 54 

defeated  by  rasbness 79 

reasons  for  confidence  in...37(>-3T4 
extent  to  which  it   has  been 

carried 315,  310 

See  Merit  System  and  Civil 

Service, 
in  India.    See  India, 
its    friends    the     friends     of 

America 118 

victory  over  Georn^e  III.,  121, 

and  over  Parliament 125 

See  Parliament. 

patronage  the  great  obstacle 

to 128,129 

See  Patronage. 

bill  of  1832.  and  the  effort  it 

cost 150, 152,  308 

why  more  difficult  in  Great 

Britain  than  in  U.  S 23, 

24-27,   31-41,  57-59,    114- 

119,    101,    193,    340.    341, 

378,  381 
demand      for,      concentrated 

against    the    monopoly    of 

members   of  Parliament...   155 
a  question  for  the  people.. .30, 

37,  38,  151,  165,  100,  109, 

207,  231,  315,  316,  358-360,  431 
not  so  much  a  party  as  a  moral 

question 159,  100,  202, 

203,  441-444 

its  scope  and  meaning 315, 

316,  358-300 
limits    aristocratic    monopoly 

190,  190,  200,  201 

See  Education. 

denounced    as    Utopian    and 

Chinese 190 

order  for  in  1855 204 

radical  measures  to  be  avoided 

at  first 205,  200,  370,  374 

effects  of,  set  forth 289-340 

has  elevated  government. 322- 

320,  358-360 
conclusion  reached  as  to,  in 

Great  Britain 303-367 


T\az 
Reform,  how  far  it  already  ex- 
tended.   See  Merit   System 
and  Civil  Service, 
how  much  to  be  attempted  at 

first 421 

few  friends  of,  at  first...  .193,  430 

relation  of  parties  to 159, 

100,  441-444 

under  President  Grant 445-448 

opposed  as  too  expensive ....  200 
executive  authority  and  duty 

to  make 180-189,  394 

405,  400,  446,  447 
See  Executive, 
our  ignorance  and  neglect  of, 

in  other  countries 4,  0 

very  great,  made  in  Europe.   0,  7 
See  France,  Prussia,  and  Swe- 
den, 
how  to  be  carried  on.  .10,  We,  203 

in  Canada 8 

scope  and  spirit  of  civil  ser- 
vice  9,  359,  300, 

378-383 
See    Merit    System,  Republi- 
canism,   Competition,    Offi- 
ces, Civil  Service  Commis- 
sion. 
Reformers,  their  perils  in  early 
times. .  .24r-27,  57-59,  121,  note. 
See     Vane,     Eliot,     Marvel, 
William   III.,  Pitt,   Burke, 
Rockingham,  Russell,  Gran- 
ville, Hume,  Peel,   Bright, 
Derby,   Gladstone,    Trevel- 
yan,  Palmerston. 
Religion   early   brought   under 

spoils  system 41,  47,  273 

later  and  present  relations  of 

273-283 

governing  by  aid  of 220, 

207,  273-283 

as  a  political  power 207, 

273-28;J 
made  a  test  by  Cromwell. ...     55 

and  by  later  rulers 02,  88, 

109,  111,  112,  113,  125,  278 


4:6Q 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Religion  degraded  by  tlie  parti- 
san system 08,  109 

in  the  universities 278,291 

See  Test,  Sacrament,  Church. 
Removals,  right  of,   under  the 

British  Constitution 77 

not  guarded  in  American  sys- 
tem   118 

early  causes  that  prevented 

arbitrary  ...IG,  19,  20,43 

given    by   statute,  in   feudal 

times 43 

partisan,  began  with  Boling- 

broke 86 

arbitrary,  under   the  Stuarts 

105,113 

arbitrary,     ceased     by    time 

George  IV 148 

none    made    on    introducing 

merit  system 206 

only  made  for  cause 80, 

308,  309 
See  OflBcers. 
relation  of,  to  tenure  of  office 

306,  367 
See  Tenure, 
abuse  of,  in  our  Territories. .  441 

abuses  of  power  of. 414,  415 

effect  of,  on    official    fidelity 

295,  296,  304,  307,  308,  375 

See  Tenure,  Spoils  Sys- 
tem, Merit  System,  Parti- 
san System,  Appointing 
Power. 

Rent  paid  for  offices 19,  20 

Report     on     civil     service     in 

1853-4 181 

See  Investigations  and  Civil 
Service  Commission. 
RejDublicanism,   decline    of    its 
influence  in  Europe.327-331, 

337,  338-341 
the  argument  against  it... 338-340 
Responsibility,      official      slow 

growth  of  feeling  of. ..12-17,  39 
Retiring  allowances.   /See  Super- 
annuation. 


FAOB 

Revenue,    internal    administra- 
tion  296-300,  305,  306 

customs  administration.. ..300-305 
See  Customs  Service. 
Revolution   averted   by  reform 

327-331 

Revolutionary  war,  affected  by 

spoils  system 116,  117, 

118, 124.  349,  352 
Richard    II.,  remarkable    civil 

service  statute  of 33 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  as  a  reform- 
er  123,  124 

Ridicule     and     sarcasm     used 
against  reform. . .  .121,  122, 

192,  196-202,  210,  211,  213 
turned  in  favor  of  new  sys- 
tem..209,  210,  211,  213,  226, 

227,  261 
Right  to  hold  office  a  common 
and  equal   right.. 226,  227, 
357-359,  363,  372,  373, 

379,380 
See    Office    and    Merit    Sys- 
tem. 

the  petition  of. 50,  5 1 

Bill  of 71,72 

Rockingham,    Lord,    as    a    re- 
former,  his   reform   policy 

118,  120,124 

Romilly,  purchased  seat  in  Par- 
liament   51 

Rules.     /See  Civil  Service  Rules. 

S 

Sacrament  of  Lord's  Supper  a 
test  for  office..  ..63,  88,  125, 

126.  273-276 
See  Tests,  Church,  Religion. 

Sale  of  offices  in  France 24 

becomes  general  in  England 

16,17,  18,134 

in  Ireland,  under  Geo.  Ill 113 

of,  prohibited 17,  132 

of  recommendations,  etc.,  pro- 
hibited  ..132-136 


INDEX. 


467 


Bale  of  charters 20 

of  boroughs 91 

of  oflBces,   excluded  political 

assessments 16,  43 

of  places  in  the  State  Cburcli 

279-283 

curious  limitations  of 17,  134 

Low  much  worse  than  our  sys- 
tem      51 

See  Officers  and  Spoils    Sys- 
tem. 
Salaries,  when  fees  gave  place 

to 130,  141-143,  293,  294 

Sandhurst  Military  School 234 

See  Army  and  Examinations. 

Sanitary  administration 292,  293 

Sarcasm.     See  Ridicule. 
Savings  Bank,     See  Postal  Ser- 
vice. 
Schools.     See  Education. 
Searchers,  former  extortion  by .     23 

but  now  instructed 302 

Schurz,  Carl,  his  official  action 

447,448 

Scotland,  corruption  in 112 

church  abuses  in 281-28:i 

Free  Church  of 282 

Secret  service  money 92, 93 

Seniority 311 

See  Superannuation  and  Tenure. 

Serfs  buy  their  freedom 28 

Settlement,  act  of 71 

Sinecurists  in  early  times 27-29 

under  Charles  II 62 

swarmed  in  1088 09 

example  of  their  late  survival 

241.243 

Senate,  its  relation  to  appoint- 
ments  412-416 

See  Confirmation  and  Bribery. 
Senators,  the  theory  of  partisan , 

that  of  feudal  lords 41,  42 

Sheriffs,  corruptions  of,  in  early 

times 21,36 

false  returns  by 23 

required  to  know  law 19 

Sidney,  Algernon 345 


PAGE 

Social  effects  of  the  merit  sys- 
tem  317,  etc. 

See  Merit  System. 
Sorters.     See  Postal  Service. 

Spies,  to  aid  partisans 115 

Spoils  system,  originated  in  feu- 
dalism.12,  21,25.  37,  39,341-344 

causes  two  rebellions 26,  35,  36 

not  destroyed  by  rebellions..  32.  34 

people  oppressed  by 33-36 

in  the  church.. 41,  47,  48, 110, 

125,  267-282 

See  Church. 

in  the  army.  .48,  64,  101,  110, 

111,  283-285 

See  Army. 

extended  to  licenses 67 

See  Corporations. 

first  limited  by  Cromwell 53-56 

as  applied  by  George  111 104 

as  applied  by  Charles  II 61 

as  applied  by  James  II 63-68 

its  various  corrupt  resources 
108-116 

tended  to  tyranny  toward  Am- 
erica  116,118 

yielded  to  a  strictly  partisan 
system  under  Q  eo  IV. ...  145, 183 

come  into  our  politics  about 
the  game  date. . .   .144,  145,  ICO 

its  struggle  to  retain  patron- 
age  169-176 

how  justified  by  British  par- 
tisans    197 

when  it  ceased  in  Great  Brit- 
ain   183 

driven    out  of  British   India 
248-259 

how  far  excluded  by  Consti- 
tution of  United  States.. 266-287 

how  effectually  excluded  from 
the  British  departments. 245, 

296-310 

some     surviving     fragments 
29\,note. 

effect   on    our    independence 
110,117.118,  134.349 


468 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Spoils  system  not  ess'-ntial  to 

party  government 384 

See  Party  Government. 

effdcts  of  its  removal 383-401 

how    far    now    tolerated    in 

United  States 440,  441,  442 

ancient  compared  wiili  mod- 
ern,.   41-45 

Star  cliamber 47,  49,  57 

State  department,  merit  system 

in 310-313 

competition  in 311,  313 

theory  as  to  consuls 311,  312 

theory  as  to  ministers 311 

ours  compared   witli   British 
. .  .10,  254-258,  310-313,  438-441 

Statesmen,  our  early 1,2 

who  are 372 

condemn  patrona<Te...l55,  156, 

159,  216,  217,  220 
the  leading  have  been  reform- 
ers. See  Vane,  Eliot,  Mar 
vel,  Burlie,  Pitt,  Grey,  Gran- 
ville, Liverpool,  Peel,  Rus- 
sell, Derby,  Palmerston, 
Gladstone,  Bright. 
Stock  jobbing  under  George  III. 

107,  108 

Superannuation  allowances,  ori- 
gin of 130 

laws  and   regulations   in   re- 
gard to 141,  142,215 

See  Pensions. 
Summary  of    wliole   course    of 
the  history,   p.   342,   Chap. 
XXXII. 

Supernumeraries 149 

See    Patronage,     Smecurists, 
Placemen. 
Supplies  to  carry  on  government 

refused  by  partisans 88,  89 

Stein  as  a  reformer 236 

Sweden,  reform  in 332-334 

System.  See  Spoils  System, 
Partisan  System,  Merit  Sys- 
tem, Feudal  System. 


T  PAGE 

Tacking.     See  Supplies. 

Talbot,  Lord,  as  reformer.  .122,  note. 

Tasmania,  reform  in 356 

Tenure  of  office,  tendency  to  in- 
crease  71,  72,  400,  413,  414 

nature  of  British 294-296, 

367-369 
need  of  its  being  more  definite 
in  United  States.  ..294-296,  340 

in  the  army Ill 

^ee  Army,  Office,  Good  Behav- 
ior, and  Removal. 
Term.     See  Tenure. 
Theorists.     See  Doctrinaire. 

Test  acts 55,  01,  62,  88,  109, 

125,  126,  278 

in  universities 278,  note,  291 

their  repeal 125, 120 

See  Corporation,  Office,  Reli- 
gion, Cliurch,  Jews,  Catho- 
lics, Sacrament. 

Titles  openly  sold 61 

See  Sale. 

as  a  political  influence...  .108, 

267-270 

Treasury,  the,  meaning  of 147 

Patronage,  Secretary  of..  153,  183 
the,  its  relation  to  the  revenue 

305,  306 

permanent  Secretary  of 306 

political  offices  in 306 

competition  in 303 

Trevelyan,  Sir  Charles,  his  re- 
port of  1853 189 

letters  from 430-433 

his  views  established 376 

See  Preliminary  Note. 
Trevor,  Sir  John,  his  corruption 

85,  86,  note. 

Trust,  office  treated  as 231- 

233,  324-336,  379 

Tudors,  their  reign 15.  39 

Tyler,  Wat 27,  28,  34 

Tyranny,  official,  declines  from 

time  of  George  IV 144 

United  States.    See  Republican- 


INDEX. 


469 


U 

PAGB 

ism,  Administration,  Cus- 
toms Service,  New  York, 
Spoils  System. 

University,  a  national 4 

Utopian   argument  against  re- 
form   196 

Upton,  General,  views  of  admin- 
istration in  India 254,  258 

V 

Vane  as  a  reformer 58 

Voting.     /See  Officers,  and  Ballot. 
Veto  powerno  longer  used 77,78 

W 

VValpole    and    Lis    administra- 
tion  91-97 

See  Spoils  System. 


PAGE 

Warrants,  general,  used  for  par- 
tisan coercion 115,  116 

Wasliington,  Lis  forecast 3,  4 

Webster,  Lis  views 414,  note. 

Wesley 94 

West  Point 4,  note,  205,  263,  284 

Wilkes 115,  116,  125 

William  III.  as  a  leformer.  .70, 

78,346 

Lis  system 69-81 

Wilson,   VicePrest.,  condemns 

patronage 397 

Women,   early  in   politics  and 
•     practising  la w ....  29,  93, 94, 100 
Low  benefited  by  tLe  reform 
. . .  .298,  note,  291, 317-319,  note. 

WoolwicL  military  scLool 2o4 

See  Army  and  Examinations. 
Wyckliffe 28,  32 


ERRATA. 

Page  11,  line  5  from  bottom,  for  "  is,"  read  "  are." 
"    42,  line  2  from  top,  omit  "  State." 
"     237,  Note  3  should  be  marked  as  a  quotation. 
"    305,  Une  15  from  bottom,  for  "system,"  read  "  administration." 


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